Testing - do I have to keep re-entering my details?

[BananaPie]

I’ve been trying to book a test for over an hour now. It keeps telling me to try again later. Am I right I’m thinking I need to enter all of my personal details again online every time I try to book?

This is all for a cough that is clearly part of a cold, but the guidance seems to be that I need a test.

Does it let you attempt to book again if you don't put your details in? If not then yes. I thought it was quite clear when I did it

same here and i got lucky just now and got a slot for midday. No just refresh the last page.

Hi, can anyone help?
I've just booked a slot or so I thought. Got right to the save and continue and I was back at the opening page (How to book a test)
No email, or text to confirm appointment and no page to confirm it's actually booked.
Is it booked or not?? I assume not...

@dustybluebell
I don't think it has gone through. Someone else must've got the slot.

I've been trying since yesterday and can't get a slot or home test. The system is saying - This service is currently very busy.

@dustybluebell that happened to me too. Then the website said there’s a technical problem..

Arrgghh...sorry you're all having the same issues. I've never been so frustrated. I just rang the helpline. It isn't booked as you get a page with confirmation details and an email and text to confirm.. so close as well.

I've been told by someone 'inside' new slots get released just before 5pm and 8pm.

It now keeps telling me that there are 94 slots available, but when I select the test site, it doesn’t have any times on offer for the next 5 days. Utterly useless. I’m a key worker missing work and my kids are missing school.

I've just spoken to the 119 helpline. I called as we thought we'd got an appointment at a test centre (after continually refreshing the bloody webpage since the early hours of this morning) but didn't receive an email. The guy said not to travel to the centre, they will turn us away due to having no confirmation email, even if we had a confirmation text! The text is apparently meaningless and if you don't get an email confirmation with a QR code pretty much instantly on booking you are not booked in . He said this is a "glitch" in their IT system, basically so many people are trying to get tests that even if it shows as lots of slots being available, in the time it's taken you to put your car reg in and click confirm or book or whatever, they can all be gone.

The guy I spoke to also said the thing about slots being released at specific times of day isn't true. Or at least it may have been initially but now they are noticing the slots are showing up more in 'dribs and drabs' as he put it. So it really is pot luck.

So frustrating. I work in a school and I am one of at least a dozen staff who are currently not able to come into work because we can't access a test, either for ourselves or our own DC.

Well it’s been claiming that there are 84 slots available in Romford and 94 in Croydon for the last hour but they are entirely unbookable. The website is obviously broken. I can’t even get on with any work or homeschooling as I’m spending almost all my time trying to book a slot

@BananaPie this is what happened to me. It would say 90 slots available then you go through and put the rest of the details in then it says nothing available. I had to drive my 2 dc to 2 different test sites last week because they couldn't get a slot at the same one

119 helpline were quite helpful about what a continuous cough is. An episode of coughing is apparently coughing so much that you can’t catch your breath, not the odd cough here and there that you get with a cold. They’re advising not to waste a test on the odd cough here and there.

I was trying all day Saturday and when I woke in the night, finally got one Sunday morning for Sunday afternoon, just suddenly let me, so worth keeping trying. Sometimes I just refereshed, other times I re-input all my details.

@BananaPie
That’s very useful and I’d wished I’d known that when I booked my coughing ds a test.
He is every now and then coughing 3-4 times in a row. I’d call each of them an “episode”. I wouldn’t call the cough continuous but I would call it persistent which is what you also hear about.