Boxing Day 26 December 2021

Last Sunday I was booked in to attend the (from a pedestrian's viewpoint) abysmally signposted @wiltscouncil Wiltshire Unitary Council owned Chippenham - Mobile PCR Testing Unit at Chippenham Council Depot SN15 5PT and set off in plenty of time walking to find it but what with fog and a road run taking place was unable to locate it and during the following week put in twice to receive a home test kit. Despite acknowledgement neither arrived. Eventually following prompting by the Zoe App I applied again to attend the mobile unit having convinced myself that I knew the directions to find it. Coming out of Cocklebury Lane the Google App tried to take me to the left telling me the destination was 3 minutes walk away. I knew it wasn't! Confirming with a lovely family walking down the footpath from the right that it was indeed in that direction I continued along the footpath to the junction taking a right at the roundabout walking past the Wavin factory the app was then telling me the location was 7 minutes walk away. It was indeed at https://www.google.com/url?q=https://w3w.co/retract.rotation.trickster The staff at the centre were excellent but I was astonished to disconver they were part of the French owned Sudexo outfit https://uk.sodexo.com/your-industry/healthcare.html who seem to have taken over the testing system. Thank goodness for our friends in #Europe. Our wonderful NHSStaff are currently under immense pressure. They have a bad pay and conditions deal and the ongoing #Pandemic is putting them under immense extra pressure. I spent 2 weeks in the #Care of the wonderful RUH Bath in August and I'd have happily contributed on top of my #NI payments over the years to a top-up fund to chip in toward giving #NHSstaff a fair pay structure. The fact that a Staff Nurse is paid, I think, £12 PH and butchers for example are paid £15 PH is a total disgrace. Fair enough those going into the medical profession do so in part because it's a dedication and something they are wonderful at but they must be given fair pay and conditions. We the public demand this. Given we know that some #NHSStaff are forced to visit #Foodbanks currently to make ends meet is an extra travesty. As an aside, I will be donating through sponsoring one of my daughters running in March for the @foreverfriendsappeal https://www.foreverfriendsappeal.co.uk/