Covid-19 Response: Defence Support

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

The hon. Member is right: it is not just the clinical touch. A vaccination process can take about 25 minutes. The actual time that someone is in front of a person with a needle and injected is three or four minutes; the rest of the time can be stewarding, keeping an eye on people and ensuring that they find the right places to go. His question is timely, because right now we are having a discussion with the vaccine taskforce and the NHS about how we can augment that to ensure that nurses and clinicians focus entirely on the clinical part and therefore the throughput can increase. We can help with such things as stewarding and, I suspect, marshalling all the volunteers.

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con) [V]]

My constituent Dr Sheila Fitzpatrick contacted me yesterday about her application to get into the process to be a volunteer vaccinator. She used the phrase: this

“needs the intervention of the military”.

I am sure she will have been pleased with my right hon. Friend’s statement, but can he explain how Army logistics can be used to ensure that those volunteering end up in the right place?

[Mr Wallace]

I am tempted to say that a good sergeant major will be able to fix a lot of that. It goes to the point that I made earlier: volunteers need managing and we need to work out their needs. Because they are volunteers we may be unable to lean on them as much to do the same number of hours. Also, we need to ensure that we match troops to task, as we call it, ensuring that the skillset is in the right place. The hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) asked the same sort of question. What we are doing at the moment with the NHS is discussing exactly how we can increase and augment that, because our skillset is often just that. The sergeant major will ensure that people are in the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing. I never said no to my sergeant major.