Thread by @JenWilliamsMEN

For me, this kind of sums up the dysfunction of the British state right now. Greater Manchester - and, I'm told, every other local area - still has no idea what testing data is coming out of the national programme
manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-m…

There's 2 sets of testing programmes. The one run here is working fine, as far as I can tell. Tests are done, they're processed in NHS labs, they come back. You get a number (438 new cases in GM over the last week.) The local public health director can look at them. But. 2/

There's a load of other tests, carried out in locations that were directly set up by the government, including here. They include eg Manchester Airport, the Etihad. They go to different labs. Their results go...somewhere. But there is no local breakdown provided to councils. 3/

One reason this matters now is that this interacts with the next phase. Local areas are a big part of containing these 'local flare-ups' the PM keeps mentioning. If you're a local public health director, it's fairly handy to know how many people are being tested in your area. 4/

Which they don't. 5/

And that's because the government bit isn't working.

Honestly, the number of conversations I've had today with intelligent, sensible, eminently practical people in local authority or health services here who are just: WTAF. How is it possible for it to be this dysfunctional?

Whinging about the vast gap in communication between Whitehall and local government is arguably my bread and butter. But it *really really matters in a pandemic*. This is a problem. And it will continue to be a theme.

/Ends.

Apologies - in the interests of accuracy, they might know how many tests have been carried out (not sure about that tbh). But they definitely don't have an understanding of their results.