Tuesday 14 March 2023

Dad and the app!

Dad and the app...



                                                             

This is an older tale again from summer 2021…

I’m round at my parents and my Dad told me the app he usually uses for prescriptions is telling him to use something in “the play store” instead, but that he: “doesn’t know if it’s genuine...”

I look, tell him, “Yes, it’s the official NHS app, it might be like what I signed up to for my test results for work.”

Back then, I had been entering Covid test results twice a week…but this wasn’t ANYTHING like I signed up for as I just had to give personal details, job title, location etc. To be fair, that website updated requirements a few times and asked further questions to the point I felt like Big Brother was watching me, but it is still N O T H I N G compared to what I then had to do with Dad!!

Here’s how it went:

I download the app, get him to fill in some personal details (he couldn’t even see his NHS number on a letter sent to him as he’d made notes on it – Mum’s already laughing at him) and there’s me telling him, “Not to write down the number, it’s a one-off security text code that he won’t need again, they’ll send a new one...” etc.

Then, we get to proving who he was. “Over to you,” he says passing me his tablet as it says to take a photo of photo ID and upload. We pick his renewed driving licence and I take the photos and upload. I had to follow rules about how the photo can be presented etc, etc – bit like a passport in terms of background, all bits visible...

THEN, it says (initially I’m impressed in terms of security) to take a photo of ‘yourself’ to verify it’s you. At this point, he’s already starting to get impatient, “I’m not sure I even want my pills if this is what I have to do…”

I assure him it’s a set up process, a one-off.

So, I take the photo and it whirls in a circle and validates then face matches.

THEN...THEN...it says you now need to take a short video saying some numbers!!!!

“Do what?” he says! “Is this a scam or a joke?”

Mum is now splitting her sides laughing and I am not much better! He is getting realllllly annoyed!! 

Mum then decides it’s time to go outside so that she can’t put him off.

I give him the choice of writing the numbers and holding up paper or saying them. He picks the latter.

Well, the numbers 1 2 5 4 will never be the same again (and I have teased him a lot since) as there we were, standing in their kitchen (much lighter than their lounge) filming him saying 1 2 5 4!! It then checked it and came up with a message that he’d hear in 24 hours if he’d passed!!

Thankfully, the full app and verification came through by the time I left to come home! When I did leave, I left behind a bewildered and slightly exhausted Dad, and a Mum who was still laughing but saying “I’m not going on holiday if that’s all what I have to do to get a double-jabbed certificate!” as Dad had noticed it said he could print one. I think he was more pleased about that than the prescriptions.

I am happy to report that he has since used the app without me there and collected pills, phew! AND, that wasn’t what they had to do to get the required Covid pass certificate to go on holiday.

What a process though!!

 

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