Local Contact Tracing

Debate between Jo Churchill and Steve Brine

Wednesday 14th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jo Churchill]

I believe that the Minister for Universities answered an urgent question in this House last week, and I am sure that if the hon. Gentleman refers the challenges he has on the university to her, she would be more than happy to work with him. I just refer him back to the fact that we are working with all local authorities.

While talking about testing, I would like to take the opportunity to remind the House about the scale of testing. It was 2,000 people a day when the pandemic began in March, and when NHS Test and Trace began our capacity was over 128,000. The capacity is now over 340,000. We have processed over 25 million tests, and one in eight people in England have been tested for the virus. I am really keen that we understand the size of this challenge. We have built the largest diagnostic network in British history, including five major labs, 96 NHS labs and Public Health England labs, and we are expanding further. We have pilots going with some of our greatest universities. We are working with hospitals, with the addition of new Lighthouse laboratories in Charnwood, Newcastle and Bracknell, as well as new partnerships only last week with Birmingham University and Health Service Laboratories in London, so we are expanding.

Right at the start of NHS Test and Trace, we worked with all 152 local authorities to help them develop their local outbreak plans. We have ensured access to data, and when it was highlighted that there was a need for better data flow, we worked on it to provide them with additional support to respond to outbreaks, such as with enhanced testing. We have also published the covid-19 contain framework—the blueprint for how Test and Trace is working in partnership with local authorities, the NHS, local businesses, community partners and the wider public so that we can target outbreaks. We introduced new regulations to give local authorities additional powers when they ask for them to stop the transmission of the virus, giving them the ability to restrict local public gatherings and events, and the power to close local business premises and outdoor spaces if it is deemed necessary. This includes more support for local test and trace, more funding for local enforcement and the offer of the armed services in areas of very high alert.

[Steve Brine]

I feel sorry for the Minister and her colleagues now that constructive opposition has ended, but let me ask her about the local tracing partnerships she mentioned. She will remember the thousands of volunteers who signed up to help during this pandemic. Have Ministers given any thought to using that army of volunteers for the local tracing partnerships?

[Jo Churchill]

I thank my hon. Friend. Those local volunteers were in some cases employed in other jobs and have returned to those jobs, but where they have indicated they are available, obviously they have been used.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jo Churchill and Steve Brine

Tuesday 23rd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Jo Churchill)]

As my hon. Friend knows, one of our key commitments was to diagnose more cancers earlier. Through NHS England and NHS Improvement, the Government have committed over £1.3 billion to deliver this, including with an overhaul of screening programmes and new investment in state-of-the-art technology to transform the process of diagnosis and to boost research and innovation. I am sure that he will welcome the fact that 18 rapid diagnostic centres towards our target of 40 are already up and running, as well as the introduction of personalised care plans, which he and I both consider very important.

[Steve Brine]

I do welcome that; I have visited many of the centres. Before the pandemic, we were battling to meet the cancer targets that I helped to set and that my hon. Friend now looks after so ably. Would she confirm that we have not lost sight of the 75% ambition in the long-term plan, and whether there will be a revision to the cancer section of the long-term plan in the light of the backlog of the stuff that we know? Of course, there is also plenty of stuff that we do not yet know that we know, as a result of presentations not coming forward through primary care.

[Jo Churchill]

There are lessons to be learned; that is essence of my hon. Friend’s question. I have met both Cally Palmer and Professor Peter Johnson throughout the crisis, and our focus on cancer has remained. Ensuring that we deliver on the long-term plan is a key objective, and I am sure that my hon. Friend will work with me on that.