Horrifying story from Conway and Manthorpe which confirms fears about chaos at heart of Govt's Testing Programme

Case study of what goes wrong , despite epic endeavour , when you shape strategy around target (100k) not the required strategic outcomes https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-the-inside-story-of-how-uks-chaotic-testing-regime-broke-all-the-rules-12022566

What was needed from moment Govt moved out of Contain phase (12 March) was to build up Test and Trace Capability

Smart move would have been to use all the capacity ( labs and teams) distributed through the system

Errr......like Germany

Govt was in early March focused on avoiding Lombardy style scenes of Patients stacked up in hospital corridors (not overwhelming NHS), PPE supply and 'ramping up' testing numbers

Hancock on return to work from Covid went with a Headline Grabbing big number - 100,000 tests a day by end of April .

Media focus became would he meet target . Not what was the required strategic outcome to enable effective national response : functional Test and Trace System

Govt followed the Johnson/Cummings Playbook . Big Bang Idea . Centralised solution . Create new parallel system . Bring in commercial partners . Exclude all local capability from design and development

Heroic efforts followed along with manipulation of target and massaging of data . But all that effort baked in a flaw from the outset that we have been seeing exposed day after day in Leicester and elsewhere. The data wasn't being provided in useable quality to local teams

The local teams have been carrying out the lion's share of the the tracing . Around 70% . With the commercial Partner's -Serco- apparently twiddling their thumbs .

This is a failure of strategic planning and implementation on a truly epic scale .With tragic consequences

And make no mistake .The responsibility lies with the Ministers who were driving programme . Classic Johnson/Cummings . Setting the agenda through announcements . Not doing the gritty work of governing . Building and delivering a sustainable strategy

Government of Incompetents