Tesco won't let me book another slot

Anamox

JamoLew said:

Shielding is no longer in play (for now) therefore you are free to go to the shops yourself whilst taking sensible precautions.
The other alternative is to get someone else to do your shopping for you or book a slot
You may be in a group that is/was classed as vulnerable, but currently, it affords you no special privileges

You are wrong, there are some extremely vulnerable people who are still shielding as per medical advice. A colleague of mine has had a kidney transplant in the last 2 months and is shielding until December, he gets all the benefits which shielding people did during the main shielding period - priority slots etc. Regardless, my diabetic 90 year old neighbour is no longer shielding but still gets priority Tesco delivery slots, I'm doing the online shops for her as she doesn't have the internet; she also still gets prescriptions from NHS volunteers and food parcels from the local authorities.

OP, I've had issues like this throughout the last 6 months, it appears to be a glitch rather than intermittent application of policy. At times I've been able to book my next 3 slots (never more than 1 per week) and at other times I've only been able to book one at a time. You can use a second account, perhaps one in the name of another family member, if you want to book this future slot still.  

Crater

Hi Anamox  thank you for both those comments. The supermarkets did pledge to keep the Priority list running and quite rightly so, "official" shielding has only been "suspended" and the government said it was not trying to force shielding people to go out. There are many households like ours where we are glad to be able to go out, but do not want to be forced to go out more than necessary. We haven;t had food parcels for ages, thanks to Tesco's deliveries, but my parter still gets his prescriptions delivered, thanks to his surgery pharmacy.  I believe the local volunteer force are still on standby for those that need them. The vulnerable have not been dumped.

Thanks for saying I'm not the only one to be affected by th2 "glitch" and I will now know to look out for it. The only real "problem" is that you don't seem to get any flag or warning that you need to do a checkout before you can book another slot. I always check out even if I only add one item. I now have another slot booked, I don't need multiple slots (and not being vulnerable myself I could only get an "ordinary" account in my name so it wouldn't help much). If we really got stuck we could try another supermarket, I got a couple of deliveries from Asda while it was really busy. The local Iceland was being helpful but they don't have the same range even of basics that the "big" supermarkets have.

ToxicWomble

Anamox said:

JamoLew said:

Shielding is no longer in play (for now) therefore you are free to go to the shops yourself whilst taking sensible precautions.
The other alternative is to get someone else to do your shopping for you or book a slot
You may be in a group that is/was classed as vulnerable, but currently, it affords you no special privileges

You are wrong, there are some extremely vulnerable people who are still shielding as per medical advice. A colleague of mine has had a kidney transplant in the last 2 months and is shielding until December, he gets all the benefits which shielding people did during the main shielding period - priority slots etc. Regardless, my diabetic 90 year old neighbour is no longer shielding but still gets priority Tesco delivery slots, I'm doing the online shops for her as she doesn't have the internet; she also still gets prescriptions from NHS volunteers and food parcels from the local authorities.

OP, I've had issues like this throughout the last 6 months, it appears to be a glitch rather than intermittent application of policy. At times I've been able to book my next 3 slots (never more than 1 per week) and at other times I've only been able to book one at a time. You can use a second account, perhaps one in the name of another family member, if you want to book this future slot still.  

Actually he is correct - shielding as a widespread concept is no longer advised.
Yes - there will be certain cases where it is definitely recommended but the list is very small compared to the number that were on the list for shielding 2 months ago
Check https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-on-shielding-and-protecting-extremely-vulnerable-persons-from-covid-19/guidance-on-shielding-and-protecting-extremely-vulnerable-persons-from-covid-19

Crater

Anamox is right. General shielding was suspeded on 4th September (or at least that is when the Guidance was updated, which is the link given by ToxicWomble. "The government is advising that you do not need to shield at the moment. This is because the rates of transmission of coronavirus (COVID-19) in the community have fallen significantly."   But there were individuals who were advised by their medical specialists to continue to shield, and in any case, the Government kept all shielding support (local volunteers, priority slots etc) in place, knowing that may people would want to go on shileding, or at least not go to supermarkets, and that it may need to be re-started in the future, which "shield us from" as IMO vulnerable people should now be able to make their own decisions with basic government support. As this is largely supplied by the supermarkets and local volunteers, which should not be a strain. The thing the Govt were really keen to do was stop the Food Boxes wherever possible. :-)  But I know that some people who really can't get out safely have been able to go on getting boxes. We were glad to stop them when the Tesco slots became reasonably reliable. Thanks everyone for your input.