Oral Answers to Questions

Jonathan Ashworth Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Clearly, the IT underpinnings of this project are critical. The Pinnacle system is working well, but we are constantly monitoring it to make sure that it supports the roll-out of the vaccine.

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Our sense of encouragement at the roll-out of the vaccine is tempered by our deep alarm at the situation we are in. Over 80,000 people have died. On current trends, we are likely to see more deaths in this wave than we saw in the first. Millions still have to go to work and the virus is now more infectious. Those still going to work of course include NHS staff, and the British Medical Association says that 46,000 of them are off sick with covid. Can the Secretary of State go further and faster, and ensure that frontline NHS staff receive the vaccination in the next two weeks? Will he provide daily updates on the numbers of NHS staff who have been vaccinated?

[Matt Hancock]

We do now provide daily statistics on the roll-out of the vaccine, and we will provide more data as the system matures and the roll-out advances. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to raise the challenges that the NHS is facing today. Although the roll-out of the vaccine is proceeding well and we are on track to hit the targets that we have set, we must also stress to everybody the importance of following the rules that are in place to control this virus and reduce the pressures on the NHS, which are very considerable at this moment.

[Jonathan Ashworth]

We all understand that, until vaccination is rolled out more generally, we will continue to see hospitalisations. The NHS is currently in a crisis: beds are filling up; intensive care unit surge capacity is being maxed out; ambulances are backed up outside hospitals; and there are warnings about oxygen supplies. Hospitals were not built for these demands on oxygen, so can the Secretary of State assure us that there are contingencies in place, and can he guarantee that no hospital will run out of oxygen in the coming weeks?

[Matt Hancock]

There are very significant pressures on the NHS. On the specific question about oxygen supplies, the limitation is not the supply of oxygen itself; it is the ability to get the oxygen through the physical oxygen supply systems in hospitals. That essentially becomes a constraint on an individual hospital’s ability to take more covid patients, because the supply of oxygen is obviously central to the treatment of people with covid in hospital. As we have a national health service, if a hospital cannot put more pressure on its oxygen system, we take people to a different hospital. I assure the hon. Gentleman that there is no constraint that we are anywhere near on the national availability of oxygen—oxygenated beds. As he knows and as we have seen reported, sometimes patients have to be moved to a different location—as local as possible, but occasionally across the country—to ensure that they get the treatment that they need.