When the government guidelines for safe re-opening of pubs were released on 23^rd June, one of the stipulations was that pubs ‘should assist NHS test and trace’ by collecting data for all their customers.

How to do this looked like a very grey area and was something that at Palmers, we were quick to pick up on.

Tenanted Trade Director, Jim Jones says “it was clear from reading the guidelines that pubs across the country would collectively be scratching their heads and trying to come up with a solution that was easy to implement, quick to use and able to cope with the tricky data protection requirements that we have in the UK.”

With a bit of lateral thinking, our approach in the end turned a quite complex issue into a simple, but very clever update of the brewery website.

It is possible to ‘check in’ at all Palmers pubs using the development- either by scanning a QR code at the door, or visiting the brewery website directly and filling out some simple details on a smart phone or tablet. The whole process stakes less than a minute, and the data is then stored in a safe environment, not used for any marketing and accessed only if NHS test and Trace request it. It is even date and time stamped for them.

“having thought things through, we were quick to realise that by making some changes to our website, we were able to accept all of the data that NHS track and trace would need, and store it securely before auto deleting it all after the required 21 days. With the help of our digital partners, Key Digital in Dorchester less than a day to have everything up and running, which is quite staggering given the scale of the problem.

I have been overwhelmed with the generous feedback from our licensees to our quick and inventive solution. It looked like a potentially big banana skin to start with…let’s remember that the government itself has just admitted defeat with it’s £12 million test and trace app, so to come up with a fully operational fix in such a short space of time is staggering really”