Vaccine Roll-out

Damian Collins Excerpts

Thursday 21st January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

All the three devolved nations are getting their vaccine according to fair shares and at the same speed as England. While supply is the rate limiting factor across the board, the same supply is going in the right proportions across all four nations.

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con) [V]]

Yesterday I visited the vaccination hubs at the civic centre in Folkestone and at Lydd airport, which along with the Oaklands surgery in Hythe are doing a great job in vaccinating the local community. Does my right hon. Friend agree that in Kent we also need to see the mass vaccination centres opening as soon as possible, which can process tens of thousands of people a week?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, I agree with my hon. Friend, and I am delighted to say that next week a new vaccination centre will open in Folkestone, serving the people not only of Folkestone, but of the wider area across parts of east Kent. That is in addition, of course, to the brilliant work that GPs are doing in his part of the world.

Covid-19 Vaccine Roll-out

Damian Collins Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

It is obviously excellent news that the vaccine has been rolled out today. I was delighted to see that my constituent, Kenneth Lamb from New Romney, was the first patient to receive the vaccine at the William Harvey Hospital in Ashford. Does the Secretary of State agree that it is really important that people take the vaccine when they are offered it, and that we do all we can to combat harmful disinformation about it? The next time that he speaks to Mark Zuckerberg, will he remind him that we expect his companies to act against harmful anti-vaccine disinformation?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, yes and yes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Damian Collins Excerpts

Tuesday 17th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I feel very strongly about this, and I agree very strongly with my hon. Friend. We should take forward this vaccine and ensure it is available fairly and equally across all parts of our United Kingdom. Of course, it will be deployed in each of the devolved nations through the devolved NHS. I have been working closely with my counterparts, and the four NHS organisations have been working together. Ultimately, let us hope that should a vaccine become available—we still do not yet have one authorised—it will be a moment at which the whole country can come together in support of making sure that those who are clinically most vulnerable will get support first wherever they live.

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

What recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport on tackling anti-vaccination disinformation online; and if he will make a statement.

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Matt Hancock)]

The Culture Secretary and I discuss regularly with social media platforms the action that is needed to tackle vaccination disinformation online. I am encouraged by the fact that social media companies who have attended meetings with us have agreed to commit to the principle that no user or company should directly profit from covid-19 vaccine disinformation and to ensure a timely response when we flag such content to them.

[Damian Collins]

It is obviously tremendous news that a vaccine will be available and that the people in the UK may be among some of the first in the world to receive it, but it is important that there is public confidence in the vaccine. The anti-vaccine movement is damaging: it is a threat to public health. Does my right hon. Friend agree that social media companies should not just be taking down anti-vaccine material when they are notified of it, but proactively looking for it on the internet and removing it themselves?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, absolutely. A critical part of tackling disinformation is providing accurate, fair and objective positive information, and my hon. Friend is absolutely right about this point. The social media companies are working—and we are providing content for them—to ensure that proper, accurate information that the public can trust from the NHS about the effectiveness of vaccines can be promoted, as well as taking action to remove information that is not accurate and not correct.

Covid-19

Damian Collins Excerpts

Monday 16th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

The right hon. Gentleman asks the question very precisely and correctly. The answer is: yes, that is our intention, and Public Health England will advise on the order of priority for the use of these tests.

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

People want accurate information during this crisis. Are the Government considering creating an offence of the malicious spreading of disinformation about the coronavirus with the intent of harming public health? Are they considering requiring social media platforms to act against known sources of such disinformation, should it occur?

[Matt Hancock]

My hon. Friend is an expert in this area. So far, the social media companies have acted with great responsibility in this area and have responded to all the asks we have had of them.

Adult Social Care

Damian Collins Excerpts

Thursday 8th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Dr Wollaston]

I thank the Minister for that encouraging response. I am glad to hear him say that rolling out good practice is key to this. I ask him to consider the Select Committee’s recommendation that the way that we can best drive that is by having a single outcomes framework. We are currently going to have outcomes frameworks for housing, for social care and for elderly people in health. Bringing those together would drive proper integration. Having a single commissioner for all these services would bring people together. If we do not have that, we risk carrying on as we are. When budgets are stretched, as we all accept they are, there is more of a tendency for organisations to say, “This money is for social care”; where spending the money would perhaps improve only health outcomes, there is less of an incentive to spend it. We should consider pooling the budgets, and having a single commissioner and a single outcomes framework. I am not saying that we should be too rigid in imposing how that is done, but we should set out what we expect. In addition, we should recognise how important housing is in this area. We should not leave it out of the equation when we consider how we help older people to continue to live independently.

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

Would my hon. Friend include more informal forms of care, such as referring patients who are socially excluded to local walking or singing groups where they can participate and be with other people? There are some good models of that in my constituency.

[Dr Wollaston]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention and agree with him absolutely. In the past couple of weeks, I have visited an organisation called Brixham Does Care in my constituency as well as another, Saltstone Caring, and I am sure that we all have wonderful examples in our constituencies, sometimes involving social enterprises and sometimes charities.

I feel that one of the most encouraging things about the Health and Social Care Bill is that it will give commissioners the flexibility to draw in partners, because there is sometimes an assumption that only the NHS can deliver good care. The NHS remains at the core of good care and I trust that GPs will have the sense to commission integrated care pathways that do not fragment local services. I do not know a single GP who wants to privatise the health service or social care; GPs want the flexibility to bring all these elements together while having the good sense to protect their much valued local NHS services. I am very encouraged to see that there will now be a focus on integration, but I ask the Minister specifically to consider integrated care with a single commissioner, because the Committee felt that that would be the most encouraging way forward.

In conclusion, let me return to Dr Bainbridge in the New Scientist, who describes middle-aged people as

“the most impressive things yet produced by natural selection.”

The Minister fits that bill perfectly and has a fantastic opportunity to achieve what we have been trying to achieve for 50 years: an integrated health and social care model. It can be done and I hope that he will look at the Health Committee’s report and make it a reality.