National Health Service

Debate between Graham Brady and Helen Whately

Tuesday 13th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately]

The hon. Member is right: I know that other parts of the United Kingdom are watching what we are doing here in England. There are regular conversations between the Department of Health and Social Care in England and the other Administrations. Also relevant is the international situation: other countries have either done what we are doing or are looking very hard at it. In fact, France has just announced that it will require vaccination for health and social care workers on a faster timeline than the one we propose.

Never again do we want to be back in the situation of having covid outbreaks across hundreds of care homes, with those who live and work in them losing their lives to this virus. Vaccination is a safe and effective way of preventing the spread of covid. The majority of care home workers have already taken up the vaccine, and it is essential that all care home workers who can have the vaccine do so in order to protect those in their care.

The original scope proposed in the consultation was to apply the policy only to care homes that look after older people, but following the consultation it became clear that there was a compelling case to extend the obligation to all care homes that provide care to the most vulnerable, for example young adults with learning disabilities. There was also significant support for broadening the scope of the policy to include all those who come into contact with residents, and there was support for including all those who enter care home residences in any capacity.

[Sir Graham Brady (Altrincham and Sale West) (Con)]

Will the Minister give way on that point?

[Helen Whately]

I will proceed, and I may answer my hon. Friend’s question as I go.

We listened to the responses and made the decision to apply the policy to all people working inside care homes, unless they have a medical exemption or are not eligible for vaccination—under-18s, for instance. There are further exemptions, including people providing emergency assistance or undertaking urgent maintenance work, and family or friends visiting. Guidance will be published that gives more detail about the exemptions, which will reflect the green book on immunisation and clinical advice from the JCVI.

[Sir Graham Brady]

Can the Minister explain why the draft regulations do not distinguish between those workers who actually come into contact with residents and those who do not?

[Helen Whately]

My hon. Friend asks a reasonable question. We consulted on exactly that point. There are two reasons relevant to the breadth of the policy, which covers not only care workers, but others coming into the care home, such as hairdressers, health professionals and tradespeople.

When somebody, including a tradesperson, comes into a care home, they might spend significant time in the care home, move around and move from room to room, so they might be a significant infection risk to the care home. They might also move between one care home and another, particularly if they are a specialist who serves multiple care homes. We know there is a risk when individuals are moving between care homes, so there is a clinical case for the regulations.

We also heard from providers responding to the consultation that they want a consistent approach for people who enter a care home to work, and these regulations will make it more straightforward for them to implement that.

Public Health

Debate between Graham Brady and Helen Whately

Wednesday 6th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately]

I do not believe that my hon. Friend is as he describes himself, but what I do think is quite clear. We are saying that people should stay at home, unless their reason for leaving home is on the very clear list of essential reasons for doing so. That covers the eligibility of the children of critical workers to be in school, healthcare appointments and, indeed, exercise. We really need to make sure that it is absolutely clear that, other than for those specific reasons, people should stay at home. That is what we need to do in order to control this raging virus. That is the message that all of us need to convey to our constituents.

[Sir Graham Brady]

Will the Minister give way?

[Helen Whately]

I have very little time and want to cover more of the points that have been raised, including by my hon. Friend.

As hon. Members have said, this national lockdown is different from previous lockdowns because we have the vaccine and the end is in sight. We have already vaccinated more than 1.3 million people. That includes the nearly one in four of those over 80 who have had their first jab. By the middle of February, we expect to have offered the first vaccine dose to everyone in the top four priority group identified by JCVI—namely, care home residents and staff; people over 70; all frontline NHS and care staff; and the clinically extremely vulnerable. That answers the question posed by the shadow Health Secretary as to when NHS frontline staff will have the opportunity to be vaccinated, as they, together with social care staff, are in the group to be offered the vaccination by mid-February.

The Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris), asked how the vaccine will be offered. He will know that vaccination is not mandatory. We are educating, encouraging and informing people of the important reasons why they should step forward and have the vaccine. That is the way in which we are going about it.

My hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke) rightly said that we should stop at nothing to get people vaccinated, and I could not agree more. That is why my hon. Friend the vaccination deployment Minister is working with the NHS on getting millions of people vaccinated in just a matter of weeks, involving hospitals, GPs, community pharmacies and a workforce that includes thousands of volunteers, including health professionals returning to the frontline to play their part. As the Health Secretary confirmed earlier, we have already acted to reduce some of the bureaucracy and, in particular, some of the training models required for those NHS returners, so that we are ready to vaccinate as fast as the vaccine can be supplied.

I have heard several hon. Members call for more data on the vaccination roll-out. I assure them that weekly data will be published tomorrow, and the publication of daily data will start next week. That data will show our accelerating vaccination programme protecting more people day by day, so that in time we will be able to lift many of the restrictions before the House today.

In conclusion, there are difficult weeks ahead for all of us—especially for those working on the frontline in health and social care, whom we cannot thank enough—but we are on the final stretch with the end in sight, so we must keep our resolve and get behind these restrictions, which are needed to control the virus until the vaccine has reached those that it needs to. I commend the regulations to the House.

Question put.

Public Health

Debate between Graham Brady and Helen Whately

Tuesday 6th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately]

I will just move on as I am conscious that I have taken quite a number of interventions—

[Sir Graham Brady (Altrincham and Sale West) (Con)]

Not from me.

[Helen Whately]

Okay then.

[Sir Graham Brady]

I am very grateful to the Minister for giving way. We are three weeks in and we know that a different model is being applied in Scotland. At what point would she expect to be able to form a judgment as to whether the Scottish approach, excluding young children from the rule of six, is less effective, as effective, or more effective than that in England?

[Helen Whately]

I have a personal perspective, as I have a household of five and am therefore well aware that the rule of six can make socialising quite difficult for families. For instance, my own family now cannot get together either with both my parents or my husband’s parents. I very much appreciate the difficulty of this restriction, although the majority of households are slightly smaller and are not finding it as difficult as my own or other larger households. We are keeping this and all measures under review. The Government clearly do not want to introduce restrictions if we do not need to do so. What is crucial is that restrictions are effective, so we are looking at all the evidence, including where and how the virus is being transmitted—whether that is in households, in people’s own homes, through meeting up with other households or in hospitality settings—and we will continue to do so. But in answer to my hon. Friend’s question, I cannot give a date or a specific “This will be the moment at which it would happen.”

[Sir Graham Brady]

rose—

[Helen Whately]

I feel I have taken quite a number of interventions, so it is time that I moved on, if that is all right.

Let me talk through some further changes that have come into effect since the regulations were made. On 21 September, following the advice of the four chief medical officers, the UK’s covid alert level was raised from 3 to 4, which is the second most serious stage, meaning that transmission is high or rising exponentially. The Prime Minister outlined to Parliament on 22 September that we were at a “perilous turning point”, and needed to act to save lives, protect the NHS and the most vulnerable, and shelter the economy from far sterner and more costly measures that would inevitably become necessary.

As a result, further restrictions came into effect from 24 September. These included: rules on the closure of certain businesses selling food or drink between 10 pm and 5 am; measures to require hospitality venues to provide food and drink for consumption on the premises by table service only; the doubling of initial fines for individual breaches of the above measures; and new fines for businesses that do not adhere to the new requirements, starting at £1,000, up to a maximum of £10,000 for repeated breaches. The rules also change the exemptions to the six-person gathering limit to restrict attendance at wedding ceremonies, receptions and support groups to 15, and remove the exemption for stand-alone religious or belief-based lifecycle ceremonies and adult indoor sports apart from indoor disabled sports. We are working through the normal channels to schedule debates for these regulations as soon as possible.

I recognise that people have had to make significant sacrifices to suppress the first wave, and these restrictions are not measures that any Government would want to introduce, but the threat of the virus very much remains. With winter approaching, we must do whatever it takes to keep it under control and protect the NHS so that it can, in turn, look after us.