Lord Kakkar
Main Page: Lord Kakkar (Crossbench - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Kakkar's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Bethell
The noble Baroness is absolutely right about the importance of guidance and I reassure her that an enormous amount of work is being done to draft clear guidance for employers, volunteer groups and all parts of society, which will include case studies, FAQs and detailed recommendations. That work is being guided by the CMO and senior officials at PHE.
As for 111, we look very closely at the metrics for the return of calls. Overall, the headline figures suggest that the 111 service is bearing up incredibly well under intense pressure, but I do not deny that there must be people who have had bad experiences. These pressures sometimes lead to poor results and we will keep a very careful eye on that.
Lord Kakkar (CB)
My Lords, I declare my registered interests. Clearly, the decision to move from the phase of containment to that of delay is essential to sustaining the ability of the health delivery system to deal with this problem.
What objective criteria will be used to determine how that decision is taken? How are the behaviour and natural history of this disease elsewhere in the world being used to inform when we should move from containment to delay?
Lord Bethell
The noble Lord asks an important question. The truth is that it is more of an art than a science. Efforts were made to look at clear metrics for triggering this result, but it is a complex situation and our understanding continues to develop. It is ultimately up to the judgment of the CMO and the confidence of the Secretary of State to make that call.