Covid-19

Harriett Baldwin Excerpts

Tuesday 1st September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

We are working through that backlog. I am glad that, over the summer, we were able to re-contract with private providers of healthcare to help us to get through that backlog, and on a better contract than before—better value for money. I pay tribute to the private providers of healthcare that have been there and delivering improvements for people throughout the summer and now on into winter. They play an important part in improving people’s health, and it is a big team effort.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

It is very reassuring to hear how far we have come in terms of our lines of defences against this invisible killer over the past six months. May I, through the Secretary of State, thank everyone who has helped us get here? On the second line of defence, the testing, can I have an update on how the NHS is working with the private sector to make sure that all aspects of our economy can reopen safely?

[Matt Hancock]

If I understand the question correctly, the ability to provide tests to parts of the private sector that need to know people do not have the virus in order to be able to reopen parts of the economy or just enable things to happen is a very important part of where we would like to get to when we have the next generation of testing. At the moment, we of course have to follow a clinical protocol for the roll-out and the use of the capacity we have. We have very significant capacity, having built it up over the pandemic, but the work with the private sector is very important, and we will be publishing more details on this shortly.