Wuhan Coronavirus

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

It is unusual to have that kind of interruption. Perhaps I may ask that Peers ask short questions to allow more Back-Benchers to intervene.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, perhaps I may follow up the points about both capacity and testing. Noble Lords might have heard Nick Robinson on the “Today” programme this morning describe his experience. Having come back from abroad, he contacted 111 and was advised to go to his local hospital, where, as he described it, he was extremely well treated. However, it involved huge resources. A nurse, booted and suited, as it were, came out to him in the car park and escorted him through the hospital and so on. As he commented, that simply cannot be replicated many times. Can the Minister reassure the House about the capacity for testing of that type? Happily, Nick Robinson was okay.

[Lord Bethell]

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has put it very well. Testing is absolutely critical to the correct treatment of this virus. There is a race on to find cheap, easily applied and speedy testing arrangements. That will help us avoid the kinds of complex arrangements that Nick Robinson vividly described. The NHS is proceeding incredibly energetically. Financial arrangements are not holding back any of the work that is being done, and resources are being thrown at that in a very big way.