Alexander Stafford
Main Page: Alexander Stafford (Conservative - Rother Valley)Department Debates - View all Alexander Stafford's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
Coronavirus
Alexander Stafford Excerpts(4 years, 4 months ago)
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Matt Hancock
The hon. Lady is quite right to raise this issue. She has raised it before and we have been working on it. In the first instance, the best way to tackle this backlog is to get treatments open as much as possible and to get the number of treatments back up to par—to where they were before the crisis—and then we will have to work on any backlog. In some areas, there are bigger backlogs than in others. The NHS did a remarkable job during the crisis. We protected the NHS during the crisis, but it has a huge amount of work to do—and we will support it to do that work—because of the inevitable and necessary consequences as part of the response to covid.
Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)
Last week, it was revealed that Rotherham had one of the highest rates of infection in the entire country. What reassurances can my right hon. Friend give to the people of Rother Valley that it is safe to go out, it is safe to patronise our businesses, and we are getting control of this virus?
Matt Hancock
It is true that Rotherham has a higher proportion of positive cases than the country as a whole. Nevertheless, that rate is much lower than it was in Leicester, and we are working with the council to ensure that the necessary action is taken. Everybody in the Rother Valley should take comfort from the fact that, nationally, the virus is under control. In rural parts of Yorkshire, the rate is not that much higher than anywhere else. People should go out and enjoy summer safely; the emphasis should be on both “enjoy” and “safely”.