Covid-19 Update

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, it is with sadness that I note that the infection rate in Sweden is inching up, and with regret that I note that Stockholm is bringing in many lockdown measures similar to those in the UK. The noble Lord is right that Sweden has had a distinctive approach, but it is not as distinctive as would appear. Many of the same regulations that we have had here have been applied in Sweden. One area where Sweden has shown leadership is in compliance among the public. When regulations have been brought in, there have been extremely high levels of compliance, and therefore the optics are different from the reality. This Government have never supported a herd immunity strategy.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I remind the House of my presidency of the Health Care Supply Association. I want to ask the Minister about testing. He will be aware that the medicine supply chain rose to the huge challenge presented partly because, early on, pharmaceutical wholesale staff were classified as key workers. That gave them access to priority testing, but on Monday the Government issued a revised list that excludes those pharmaceutical wholesale staff. The Healthcare Distribution Association has reported to me that there are already delays in staff accessing these tests. It is very concerned that, if this continues, it will have a very detrimental effect on the supply of medicines to hospitals and pharmacies. Would the Minister be prepared to take this away, look at it and see whether they could be added back to the priority list?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

The noble Lord makes an extremely good point. I am grateful to him for alerting me to this question in advance. We take the contribution of pharmacists to the battle against Covid extremely seriously. I am not sure, right now, why pharmacists have been taken off the list and I would be glad to look into the matter and respond to him shortly.