Ebola

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Roberta Blackman-Woods

Monday 13th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I am happy to let the hon. Lady have full details of what is being planned at the RVI, which is an excellent hospital. It was one of the hospitals that was part of the exercise that we did on Saturday to test preparedness. In that exercise, we modelled what would happen if someone became sick and vomited in the Metro centre and was then transferred to the RVI. We modelled the decisions about whether they would be kept there or transferred to the Royal Free, and so on. I am very satisfied with the measures in place at that hospital, but I will happily send her the details.

[Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

I am one of a group of parliamentarians who returned from a visit to west Africa on Friday. We were quite surprised to be asked no questions about where we had travelled, and to be offered no screening at either the EU or UK border; I came back to Newcastle from Brussels. Will the Secretary of State reassure us that all regional airports will offer screening and advice to people who might be affected? Will he redouble his efforts, in partnership with other agencies, to stop the spread of this disease, which is devastating parts of west Africa?

[Mr Hunt]

We are absolutely redoubling our efforts, and we are looking at what screening procedures are needed at regional airports. The screening and monitoring procedures that I outlined are starting at Heathrow terminal 1 tomorrow; they will be rolled out progressively across Heathrow, Gatwick and Eurostar terminals over the next two weeks. We are satisfied that that will reach the vast majority of people travelling from the affected countries. Any decision to expand those arrangements to other regional airports will be taken on the basis of the scientific advice that we receive about risk.