The 'Let's Get Back' advertising campaign by NHS Test and Trace, which had been running from 30th July until (I believe) very recently, included a 60 second TV advert. In the advert, the only spoken words (also written on the screen) are: "Testing is free, quick and vital to stop the spread of coronavirus. So let's get tested, and get back to the things we love." The adverts that I have seen make no mention whatsoever (as far as I have seen) of the tests being limited to people who have symptoms of Covid-19 (although there is a graphic at the end which says "Feeling Unwell? Get a free test now." - on-screen for the last 2 or 3 seconds). One of the purposes of the campaign, apparently, was to "encourage everyone to get a free test as soon as they get symptoms", but the TV adverts I have seen make no mention of 'symptoms'. The advert seems to have had a lot of airtime.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/n...et-a-free-test

On September 17th, Dido Harding, the head of NHS Test and Trace (a political appointment), speaking to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, said "“I don’t think anybody was expecting to see the real sizable increase in demand that we’ve seen over the last few weeks". Quite what the expected result from running the TV advert was, if not to see a real sizable increase in demand, is not at all clear to me.

I will refrain from making any other comment on the above, but I will bring to people's attention the following.

The top leadership of NHS Test and Trace includes several senior figures brought in from retail, commerce and industry, but only one public health expert, a leaked structure document reveals.
[...]
The full “wider leadership team”, of around 80 posts, includes several other PHE experts, but no current public health directors, and no-one who has recently worked in public health locally.
[...]
The person who is listed as advisor to Baroness Harding, Alex Birtles, worked for TalkTalk as a product and commercial director until spring last year.

https://www.lgcplus.com/services/hea...rt-15-09-2020/