Covid-19: Helplines

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell]

The question of indemnity insurance is addressed in detail in the coronavirus emergency Bill. We are fully aware of the concerns of anyone returning to work, and indeed anyone who might have indemnity insurance in one area of practice but who will be asked to take on exceptional duties required as part of this emergency—the surgeon, for instance, who takes on respiratory support duties. Those indemnities will be thorough and will cover all work. In terms of the warehouses for PPE, it is incredibly important that there is load allocation according to the need for the PPE, not necessarily the demands of local authorities. There is therefore an active allocation of PPE to those areas that have the highest incidence of the virus. That is being managed centrally in a thoughtful and professional manner.

[Lord Alderdice (LD)]

My Lords, I direct the House to my medical and other interests in the register. I have no doubt that NHS 111 and other helpline medical professionals and health professionals will give the best advice. But Professor John Ioannidis at Stanford University has pointed out that we are making major changes in the way we run society, on necessarily limited evidence for what happens with this virus. Can those working on NHS 111 and any other advice lines also take epidemiological data on the length of time and types of symptoms and, particularly, geographical spread, and feed that data back to research institutes inside and outside the NHS, so that we can get the best handle possible, as soon as possible, on how this virus operates?

[Lord Bethell]

The noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, is entirely right: one of the features of this virus is its extremely unpredictable nature. The way in which it reacts in different people at different times is extraordinarily diverse. Some people appear to be completely knocked out by it; some have the lightest possible symptoms. There seems to be an alignment with age. We are all enormously thankful that the young and very young seem to be blessed by having the light symptoms. We are all extremely concerned about the old, but it is not even as simple or as linear as that. A huge investment is being put into understanding the virus better. I am pleased to report to the Chamber that international co-operation on that is extensive and positive, and that British researchers are at the leading edge of pulling together that data.