Public Health

Adam Holloway Excerpts

Wednesday 6th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con)]

I again congratulate the Government on their amazing foresight and on getting so far ahead of the game with the vaccination programme. A few minutes ago, I spoke to a prominent Gravesend GP, Dr Rubin Minhas. For the last couple of weeks, he and his team have been busy contacting local over-80s to book them in for their inoculations at the surgery. In order to do that, he has had to get all his staff on the phones—all the receptionists, and husbands, wives and partners. That is having a real effect on the day-to-day work of the surgery. We should be giving GPs more help with bookings, especially since this will ramp up as more vaccine becomes available and it is given to different groups.

Throughout all this, many people have been really quite heroic, especially all the people who go to work day after day knowing that they have an underlying health condition that makes them particularly vulnerable to the virus. One headteacher in my constituency has shown what can only be described as extraordinary bravery, going into school every day and risking his life. We all know of people in our constituencies—there are perhaps tens of thousands of them around the country—who knowingly put their lives at risk every single day in the public sector and the private sector, in schools, supermarkets, hospitals and food packaging plants. I am glad that such people will soon be inoculated, but I do not think it is right that there should be any acceleration for those working in particular settings such as schools who are not in vulnerable groups. That would delay what the Prime Minister describes as the firebreak, whereby we deal with the people who are most likely to die and stop deaths going off the cliff.

We need a can-do attitude. In rolling out this massive programme of vaccination, it is critical that everyone in the public service shows the can-do attitude that we have witnessed from all the staff at Darent Valley Hospital who have been looking after my constituents over all these months. All of us in public service should be following their example to do everything we can do to get these first four groups vaccinated. This is not the time for bureaucracy or for finding reasons why something cannot be done or why it is too difficult. I was horrified to hear that one hospital received 3,000 doses of vaccine on the Wednesday before Christmas but did not start using it until nearly five days later. Everyone in this country —especially those of us paid from the public purse—must treat this vaccination programme with the greatest urgency. This is a national emergency, and there should be no room for anyone who is not on a war footing to get these early groups vaccinated.