In Germany you have to go through gp to get a test

[avenueq]

I think that's true in most areas at least?
Probably a better idea, but could it work here?

No, pointless additional hoop to jump through when testing is already difficult to obtain.

No we can't see a GP at the best of times

Our surgery are currently sitting at 11 days for a phone appointment. This wouldn’t work.

Germany has a much better funded and run health system, I imagine it's fairly easy to use your GP and they'll have a smooth system. Here, you'd just be adding another layer of 'going wrong somewhere and I can't even get though on the phone'.

I think in spain as well but I guess it won’t work in some areas of the country unless new doctors are employed

Your GP being able to order a home test for you should at least been there as one option, yes.

“ We have 61,000 GPs in this country. They are the backbone of our NHS. They know you, support you, can do your blood + swab tests, monitor you, refer you, notify public health about you. But they can't get a COVID test done in a pandemic because Deloitte have been given a contract.

And naturally results are not sent to GPs, and lots of results go missing or arrive days later. Why have we set up a parallel service?”

Anthony Costello on Twitter.

Same in The Netherlands. It seems one of the reason why we have one of the highest test rates per population yet have no availability.

It would work if school and work were obliged accept G.Ps decision re testing so people allowed back (if well enough) after negative test or GP confirmation a test is not required. There might still be people who weren't tested when they need to be (G.Ps won't always get it right) but it would be better than what we have now. The main problem though is we have so many fewer doctors per our population than Germany does so it would probably be impossible for a lot of G.Ps to cope with the extra workload at short notice now. Maybe if it had been planned for in the early summer.

Of course the PP is spot on about using a parallel service in the first place . Why?

I have lots of family over there. A few had tests and none went through GP.

*“ We have 61,000 GPs in this country. They are the backbone of our NHS. They know you, support you, can do your blood + swab tests, monitor you, refer you, notify public health about you. But they can't get a COVID test done in a pandemic because Deloitte have been given a contract.

And naturally results are not sent to GPs, and lots of results go missing or arrive days later. Why have we set up a parallel service?”*

Of course the GPs should be doing it. Unbelievable that each GP surgery doesn't have a supply of swabs. I think shambolic is the phrase.

As it should be here. but no, our government saw a way for -their mates- private individuals to make some money, as usual.

It’s the same in Ireland. GP books you in after an assessment of symptoms over the phone. Seems to be working well at the moment. My son needed a test , spoke to gp at 9.20 Monday morning, got a text at 9.50 with the appointment which was for 11.40 in a centre about 25 mins drive away. Results (negative thankfully!) came through at 9.15pm last night.

@CrumbsThatsQuick

Same in The Netherlands. It seems one of the reason why we have one of the highest test rates per population yet have no availability.

My DH simply booked a drive through test online (also Netherlands). Without the GP. This was three weeks ago or so? He got tested the next day and had the result the day after that (tbf they said it would take a day longer for the result to come in).

@ZoZoBo

It’s the same in Ireland. GP books you in after an assessment of symptoms over the phone. Seems to be working well at the moment. My son needed a test , spoke to gp at 9.20 Monday morning, got a text at 9.50 with the appointment which was for 11.40 in a centre about 25 mins drive away. Results (negative thankfully!) came through at 9.15pm last night.

Are you Stephen Donnelly's mum??

Same in Italy.

You don't need symptoms either in Italy, all school staff for example have been invited to take a test.

Yeah it seems ridiculous to me that we’ve set up a system ignoring the existing network of GP surgeries that would have been able to run a testing programme, given the funds that Deloitte or whoever got instead. There are 3 GP surgeries in my town, but our nearest testing centre is 45 miles away & inaccessible by public transport...

If there were some sort of test, such as if you have a cough, but are also sneezing/runny nose, you don't need to get a test or isolate, I think this would reduce a lot of pressure with not much risk of cases going undetected. I imagine most of the children getting tested have obvious colds (mine did last week), but while the requirement is to isolate for 2 weeks, I'll go to any length to get a test thank you! It is wasting resources but there's no other option.

My DH simply booked a drive through test online (also Netherlands). Without the GP. This was three weeks ago or so? He got tested the next day and had the result the day after that (tbf they said it would take a day longer for the result to come in).
3 weeks ago my dh was sent home from in the UK, went on line got a drive in test within half an hour and got the results back at 6am next morning, so no different.
They are testing on average 227000 a day and only 3k are positive, that is just over 1% which to me means that people are testing unnecessarily.

In Germany they are only testing 1.79 tests per 1000 where as we are 2.76 per tests per 1000

😂 I was actually cursing him last night when I heard the news and he had been tested and gotten results in hours and I was facing another day working l at home with my kids who were like caged animals
Then I got my text - kids were thrilled

Sorry that was in response to @KindergardenCentre who I thought I quoted 😬

Yep same in Ireland but I never have a problem getting a GP appt either the same day I call for one or the next day anyway, and I live in a city suburb type area so always busy. So it makes sense that I can call for a phone appt and get one quickly too. My GPs seem to have employed more doctors for dealing with the phone consultations too. Three times now we have to call for tests and every time we have received a text confirmation of the test time within an hour of speaking to the GP, and results the next day.
No idea how you can suddenly speed up a health service when it was already struggling anyway

Just - you obviously cant go by PT anyway fgs!
It wouldnt work here
Our gp surgery are not very good
Gp dont work weekends and probably not evenings.
I d

GP surgeries are open 8am-6pm with an out of hours service provided by various methods - in my experience it’s been a walk in centre attached to the local A&E. But their usual opening hours are irrelevant, this would be a different service. To my mind it would have been far far more efficient to use our existing local NHS provision & our local public health teams rather than dish out juicy contracts to Serco & Deloitte.

So only people who can drive can get a test where I live... FGS.