Swine Flu

John Healey Excerpts

Monday 10th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab) (Urgent Question)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for allowing this urgent question to ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the Government’s preparations for and response to the current flu outbreak.

[The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Andrew Lansley)]

Every winter, flu causes illness and distress to many people. It causes serious illness in some cases and, unfortunately, some deaths. I know that each death is a tragedy that will cause distress to family and friends.

The NHS is again well prepared to respond to the pressures that winter brings—it has responded excellently this year. I thank in particular general practitioners, who each year work tirelessly to look after the health of their patients—especially this winter when the weather, as well as flu and other viruses, has presented challenges.

The rate of GP consultations for influenza-like illness is currently 98 per 100,000 people, down from 124 per 100,000. Those figures are lower than the numbers recorded during the pandemic in 2009-10 and below epidemic levels, which are defined as 200 per 100,000 people. The most recent data showed that 783 people were in critical care in England with influenza-like illness.

Where necessary, local NHS organisations have increased their critical care capacity, in part by—regrettably—delaying routine operations that require critical care back-up. That is a normal local NHS operational process; critical care capacity is always able to be flexible according to local need. We have also increased the number of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation beds, for patients with the most severe disease, from five to 22. A seasonal flu vaccine is again available this year. Our surveillance data show that the vaccine is a good match to the strains of flu that are circulating.

GPs in England order seasonal flu vaccine direct from the manufacturers, according to their needs. Vaccine supply is determined in the early part of the year, for autumn delivery. We recently became aware of reports of flu vaccine supply shortages in some areas in England. We are working with the NHS locally to ensure available supplies of surplus vaccine are moved to where they are needed. In addition, the H1N1 monovalent vaccine is now available to GPs for patients who are eligible for the seasonal flu vaccine.

The Government continue to take expert advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation. Last year, the JCVI advised for the first time that, in addition to usual risk groups, healthy pregnant women should be vaccinated with seasonal flu vaccine. It did not recommend that children under the age of five outside the at-risk groups should be vaccinated. On 30 December, the JCVI assured me that this advice remains appropriate.

The number of deaths in the UK this winter from flu, verified by the Health Protection Agency, currently is 50. The number of deaths from seasonal flu varies each year, with over 10,000 deaths from seasonal flu estimated in the winter of 2008-09.

Antiviral medicines can also help clinical at-risk groups who have been exposed to flu-like illness. We notified clinicians that the use of antiviral medicines in these groups was justified and, at their discretion, with other patients. We have given access to the national antiviral stockpile to support that.

We are making publicly available for the first time a range of winter performance information, published on the Winterwatch section of the Department’s website. I wrote to all Members last week to inform them of the NHS response to flu, and updated them further in a written statement published this morning.

[John Healey]

I thank the Health Secretary for that statement, but the truth is that he has been slow to act at every stage of this outbreak, and that is putting great pressure on the NHS across the country. It is working flat-out in our local hospital in Rotherham. We have had to open extra beds, and since last Tuesday have cancelled all non-urgent surgery. Four of the 50 patients in the UK who have so far died linked to this flu have been in Rotherham, and two were constituents.

The Health Secretary talks about seasonal flu, but we knew this would not be like normal winter flu because we knew swine flu would be dominant, so the central question for the Health Secretary is why he made less preparation for a flu outbreak that was expected to be more serious. Why did he axe the annual autumn advertising campaign to help boost take-up of the flu jab and help the public understand who is at risk and what treatment is available? We know it works, and this was a serious misjudgment.

Why was the Government’s first circular to midwives, urging them to help get pregnant women to take up the flu jab, not sent out until 16 December? Why has there been no move to offer vaccines through antenatal clinics, and why are the Government not publishing details of the numbers of pregnant women who are seriously ill or who have died, as they are with other groups that are most at risk?

With proper planning and preparation, we should not have seen GPs and pharmacies running out of the vaccine in some areas last week, nor should we have seen parents confused about the treatment available for their young children. I hope last week’s figures mean we may be over the worst, but, with 783 people in critical care and a long winter still ahead, what steps will the Health Secretary take if the numbers of ill people continue to rise? Can he now, today, give the House the reassurance he has failed so far to give the public, which is that he really has got a grip on this situation? Finally, when all the bodies he is relying on to sort out this situation will be abolished under his internal organisation, what assurance can he give the public that this will be any better handled in the future?

[Mr Lansley]

I share the right hon. Gentleman’s deep sadness at the deaths in Rotherham and join him in expressing clearly my condolences to the families of his and other Members’ constituents who have died. Regrettably, there will, I fear, be further deaths from flu—that is in the nature of the winter flu season—but I have to explain to him that we are in the midst of a seasonal flu outbreak that has not reached epidemic levels. Neither is it a pandemic, which is clearly a different situation in which a novel virus, to which there is not acquired immunity, is in circulation.

The right hon. Gentleman asked some specific questions. First, on having to cancel operations, I have made it clear that that is, unfortunately, a consequence: if the NHS’s critical care capacity is under pressure, it cannot admit large numbers of patients for elective operations that might require critical care back-up. The seasonal winter flu outbreak has led to an increase in the number of patients with flu in critical care beds, although they still constitute only about one fifth of the total number of critical care beds, and I pay tribute to hospitals across the country that have increased their critical care capacity, particularly in intensive care, to deal with the situation.

We are also providing assistance to the NHS. I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman did not refer to my important announcement last Tuesday that, because we made savings in the Department of Health’s central budgets, on things such as management consultancy costs and the IT scheme, we have been able to issue this financial year—in other words, starting now—an additional £162 million to primary care trusts throughout England. They will be able to use that money directly with their local authorities to facilitate the discharge of patients. There are currently about 2,500 patients in hospital who could be discharged if the appropriate arrangements were in place. That will accelerate the relationship with social care that we are looking for.

It is pretty rich for the right hon. Gentleman and the Labour party to say that there should not have been any shortages. The number of vaccines supplied to the United Kingdom was determined before the Government took office. It was determined under the previous Administration, in the early part of last year, not by this Administration. Furthermore, it was equally not just presumptuous but unhelpful for him, during the Christmas period, to talk inaccurately about whether children under the age of five should be vaccinated. He knows perfectly well that like his predecessors we take advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation. With the chief medical officer, we asked the committee to look at the issue again, and it met on 30 December and reiterated its advice that young children should not be vaccinated. So for him to stimulate press reports suggesting that parents should have their children vaccinated, when the expert advice was not that that should be done, was deeply unhelpful.

The right hon. Gentleman’s final point was about the organisations. It is clear to me that, by abolishing the Health Protection Agency and bringing its responsibilities inside the Department of Health under the new Public Health England, we will have a more integrated and more effective system for responding to seasonal flu in future years.