Sunk Without a Trace?

I appreciate that it is only one selection of experiences by the readership of one newspaper that is not especially supportive of the UK government but the accounts of reader's contact with the test regime for Covid-19 fills me with trepidation (https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/sep/08/englands-covid-testing-troubles-something-is-clearly-going-wrong). It is clearly wrong for someone, in London, to be told that they must go to Inverness (450 miles away, in the North of Scotland) for a test. Not only would this be difficult for someone possibly coming down with sickness to do, perhaps require 2-3 days of travel but it would risk spreading the virus throughout the country. One can only assume that the algorithm (if that's what it is), allocating test locations, does not have the option of admitting that NO tests are available within a specified time frame. So it simply gives you the only possibility. Less extreme accounts of people being directed to test centres 30-60 miles away abound. Folk were also informed that, they should presume their results had been 'lost', if they received nothing within 'x' days. None of these reports can fill anyone with confidence. And all this is evident in the 'world class' system, with ample opportunity for refining, since the beginning of the pandemic in the UK. It is evident that there is not much point in having a 'trace' system (and that also seems to have gaping holes in it), if you can't deliver rapid, reliable and repeated testing close to all people's homes! This doesn't look at all good, when government is simultaneously trying to a) re-open the economy; b) get all the schools back into full time education; c) encourage people to take foreign holidays and d) welcoming the students back into Universities. It looks as if infection rates are building up in many locations already and we have only just started. And Winter is coming!