Covid-19 Vaccines Deployment

Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I am enormously grateful to the right reverend Prelate for mentioning practice managers. Managers in the NHS are sometimes given a bit of a hard time and are too often overlooked. But, my goodness, if the vaccine deployment has been a success and been run smoothly—and if the constant reports I get of two-minute turnarounds, accurate invitations and appointments made briskly and accurately are correct—it is because of those managers. The NHS practice managers are running a tight ship and delivering huge value for the NHS. They are too often overlooked but, boy oh boy, have they delivered on this occasion.

The right reverend Prelate is entirely right to raise the issue of not only community champions but volunteering overall. It has been one of the toughest aspects of our response to Covid to make use of the hundreds of thousands of people who have stepped forward in various schemes to help with it. There are returning practitioners from healthcare; there are community champions, which he rightly described, along with the faith groups; there is also St John Ambulance and the vaccinating volunteers. Quite often, hygiene protocols and the necessity to put in place measures to avoid transmission of the disease have meant that it has been difficult to mobilise the army of volunteers. One thing that we should look back at, when we do our post-mortem, is how we as a country can deploy civic society more effectively.

Regarding the faith groups the right reverend Prelate specifically mentioned, I pay tribute to their role in the vaccine deployment. The sight of vaccines being given out in synagogues, mosques, gurdwaras and temples up and down the country surely has a huge part to play in their successful deployment among many difficult-to-reach groups.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, may I press the Minister once more on care homes, as mentioned by the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Thornton? The progress on vaccinating residents is indeed impressive. Are there now plans to also vaccinate as a priority, with encouragement if necessary, the staff who work in care homes and to offer the vaccine to relatives who wish to visit, so that family life of some sort can be re-established?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, we have done an enormous amount to prioritise care home staff, for the entirely pragmatic reason that it would make no sense at all for vulnerable care home residents to be infected by the staff who come and serve them. It is not always possible to put care home staff in exactly the same queue as those residents, sometimes because they are the ones delivering the vaccines. There is in fact a hugely sophisticated NHS route for care home staff to get their vaccine. However, I hear loud and clearly the concerns of noble Lords on this area. Let me please look at it more closely and I will correspond with the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, if I can provide her with any more details that would be helpful.