Vaccine Roll-out

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Thursday 21st January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

My hon. Friend is quite right to praise the teams across the north-east who have been doing an unbelievable job. The vaccination of 98% of residents in his area is something we should all celebrate. Making sure that everybody is within 10 miles of a vaccination centre is important. In the very rural areas that may include being 10 miles from a mobile site, because we will send in mobile sites to the most rural areas. Crucially, by 15 February everybody will have the offer of a vaccine. Sometimes they may get two offers. One might be to travel, for instance to go to Newcastle where there is a vaccination centre, but if they get that invitation they can still wait to have the more local offer of a jab from their primary care network. There are different ways to make it happen, but he is absolutely right on the importance of getting the vaccine available for all.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

Without increasing the 2 million doses a week to 5 million, we are going to be administering the vaccine to the adult population until the end of the year. That causes great anxiety. People are confused and unclear about if and when they will get a dose, particularly informal carers who worry that they are not on anyone’s list. Will the Secretary of State consider requiring doctors and the NHS to text or write to all patients to outline where they are on the list, so that people have a better reasonable expectation of when they will be vaccinated? That would enable them to ensure their prioritisation is correct, and, actually, stop them phoning up surgeries and blocking up phone lines to ask questions about when they are going to get their vaccine.

[Matt Hancock]

All those who are over 70 or clinically extremely vulnerable will have that offer before 15 February. What that means in practice is that if you receive a letter when measures are put in place recommending that you shield—that letter comes from either me or the Communities Secretary—then you are on the list to be vaccinated before 15 February. After that, we will continue through the JCVI cohorts, which of course includes, in cohort six, those who are vulnerable but not in the clinically extremely vulnerable group. We will get there, and we will invite people according to their clinical need. My recommendation to the hon. Gentleman’s constituents is that they should wait for the NHS to get in contact with them. We have a programme to make sure that everybody is reached.