Lord Spellar
Main Page: Lord Spellar (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Spellar's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Nadhim Zahawi
It is good news from Public Health England on the B.1.617 variant that two doses of either Pfizer or AstraZeneca-Oxford are as effective on infection and are very likely to be even more effective on serious illness and hospitalisation in real-world circumstances. Ultimately, we are effectively pursuing an evidence-led strategy. The four weeks plus one—the five-week interval—are for us to be able to assess the data and share it with Parliament and the nation. At the moment, I am cautiously optimistic that we are in a good place. We have to remain vigilant and we have to work together. As I said earlier, let us take the politics out of this and make sure that all our constituents are careful, and we will get there together.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
I am sure that the Minister will agree that throughout the pandemic our community pharmacies have performed magnificently on the frontline of the health service, but unfortunately there still seems to be institutionalised bias against them in the Department of Health and Social Care, even now. Only a couple of pharmacies in Sandwell have been authorised for the covid vaccine. I urge the Minister to get a grip on his bureaucrats and get vaccines rolling in our Sandwell pharmacies before the bank holiday.
Nadhim Zahawi
I know that the right hon. Gentleman is a passionate advocate for community pharmacies; he and I have discussed them in the past. I do not recognise his characterisation of the NHS team, who I absolutely know work every day with community pharmacies. I think that just over 500 community pharmacies and independent pharmacies are now part of the vaccine deployment. In phase 1, they have proved themselves to be excellent at reaching out and giving confidence to their communities and at getting people vaccinated; where primary care has decided not to carry on with phase 2, they have also stepped up to fill the gaps so that we keep going. I will absolutely look at the right hon. Gentleman’s constituency to see whether we can do more.