Covid-19: Vaccinations

Lord Scriven Excerpts
Thursday 17th December 2020

(3 years, 10 months ago)

Lords Chamber
Read Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Bethell Portrait Lord Bethell (Con)
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I take on board the noble Baroness’s points on the NHS. Its staff have been under huge pressure, which is likely to be sustained into the new year. I pay tribute to their hard work. The JCVI has looked extremely carefully at the prioritisation. The most important thing is to avoid pressure on ICUs and the threat of mortality. That has been done by prioritising age over role. I also pay tribute to the St John Ambulance service, which has done an amazing amount of work in gathering 40,000 inquiries for training on delivering the vaccine. By undergoing training, those people will relieve NHS staff of an enormous amount of the pressure that the noble Baroness rightly describes.

Lord Scriven Portrait Lord Scriven (LD)
- Hansard - -

My Lords, following on from my noble friend Lady Brinton’s question, it is estimated that between hundreds of thousands and millions of people are not registered with a GP. Some have the most chaotic lifestyles, do not speak English and are not plugged into the most basic services. How will the Government make arrangements for people who are outside normal registration processes to be vaccinated?

Lord Bethell Portrait Lord Bethell (Con)
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

The noble Lord makes the point well. He is right that there are undoubtedly communities that conventional NHS outreach has not got to; we have learned that fact during Covid. Our immediate priority is to reach the over-80s and ensure that the deployment programme works for those groups that are most at risk. We will be turning our attention to the groups that he describes, but I cannot avoid the fact that, if you are going to get a medical service, you need to be registered with a GP. That is something that some people are going to have to make part of their life.