Julie Anne Palmer of Central Devon re Test n Trace.
“I used to work for Test and Trace, it was a waste of time, I never saved anybody’s life……………….
Just before covid struck I was working for a solicitor! It was temporary through an agency. About to take on a job to cover maternity leave then we had lockdown. March 2020.
I found myself unemployed with no income.
I had an empty second property due to a dispute with a builder, ongoing repairs, two mortgages and two lots of council tax to pay! I also was suffering damaged discs in my neck.
I had to work no choice as I was told the only help I could get was £50 a week universal credit and I was not entitled to furlough.
So I looked for online work and was offered a job through Sitel for John Lewis (it’s a call centre).
Sitel is an American company. Employees work from home as a virtual associate, working with some of the world's best brands to support customers with billing inquiries, account or product questions, service orders, installation scheduling, troubleshooting and more – via phone, email, chat and social media.
I ended up working for Sitel Test and Trace.
Although named NHS Test and Trace the system was largely run by two private companies, Serco and Sitel, that handled the national call centres and online systems.
The Serco and SITEL Government contact tracing contracts specified payments of £190 million in total for the first three months, but also allowed for the firms to be paid up to an additional £528 million as the contracts were extended.
I was told I’d need to go into their offices to train. I did so but when I got there I was horrified. The stairwell for starters had no ventilation and no one was wearing a mask. We were all sat twenty people in close proximity. People were sat around the cafeteria and in close proximity everywhere in the building.
I went home and with a heavy heart I decided to tell them by email that I wasn’t prepared to put my health at risk working for them and threatened to report them to the authorities regarding the lack of health and safety measures about covid in their building.
They promptly responded asking me to have a meeting with their personnel and building manager. I did so as I needed to take back my security badge. I was offered a new job straight away working from home using my laptop for £10 per hour five days a week!
It was only then I was told I would be working on Test and Trace , not John Lewis. You can imagine my horror finding out the same firm were responsible for track n trace!
Anyway I had no choice but to accept the position as I was in danger of accumulating lots of debt if I could not keep paying my mortgages. So I trained from home via a computer link. The training was over complicated and took far too long …. ( I guess that is why the paid advisor’s could justify the huge £6,000 a day they earnt)!
The system connected a programme which gathered patients records through the NHS and would generate a select number of calls each day. The data collected from people who were infected with the virus was corroborated with NHS data and a phone number and name was given to call the person who had supposedly been in contact with the virus .
However hundreds of people like myself sat clicking repeatedly a key on our laptops all day long when the data went live which was completely random. You were lucky to get one or two cases to call each day. 99% of the time you would not connect with a person but go straight through to a voicemail. You’d leave an inadequate scripted message to say that NHS test n trace had been in touch and would phone them again. The number went back into the system. There was no guarantee the suspected carrier would receive the message and the number of times their telephone number could be chucked back into the system was ten, After that I was told it was deleted.
What happened after the tenth call? By that time that person had probably infected hundreds more ! The isolation would and could only work if you’d manage to get that person isolated within 24 hours. The whole system was woefully inadequate.
The system worked on a predicted incubation period of 11 days which has since been proven to show that time with the covid 19 virus was not a factor that would or could prevent the spread and I know from the World Health Organisation that was the case even before the system was designed.
The computer system also kept on crashing and was not a secure way to ensure we could reach the public quickly. I couldn’t stand feeling so dysfunctional in my daily job and I asked to leave my position to go back to the John Lewis Campaign. However the company again caused issues for me and I left after 6 weeks. People who worked on the system were more worried about losing their jobs than speaking ill of the dysfunctional operating system.
When you consider people’s lives we’re at risk it’s thoroughly despicable!
Lots of the people working on track n trace thought they were helping the nation from contracting the virus but actually they were allowing the big corporations taking the money to offer a dismal fatal service to the public and keep the unemployment figures down for people like myself. I never felt like it was anything but private business putting profit before safety! It was a scandal.
I maybe saved the lives of some call centre staff by making Sitel implement health and safety measures such as mask wearing in their offices and introducing a one way walking system there.
They wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t threatened to report them.
It’s a horrible selfish world we live in.
I have a lot I’d like to say to Boris Johnson about the web he has spun with his lies and deceit.”
Julie Anne Palmer
Test and Trace set for axe with 10,000 job cuts because there's "no money left"
The details were revealed in a 160 page Whitehall dossier codenamed Operation Rampdown and up to 10,000 contact tracers and call handlers have been told their jobs are being axed
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/test-trace-set-scrapheap-thousands-25507875
England’s covid-19 testing and tracing system failed to achieve its main objective—to break chains of transmission and enable people to return to a more normal life—despite an “eye watering” budget of £37bn , MPs have said.
https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n2606
COVID-19: Contact tracers fired after Test and Trace told to 'reduce staff' as case numbers fall
https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-contact-tracers-fired-after-test-and-trace-told-to-reduce-staff-as-case-numbers-fall-12208997
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