Lord Touhig
Main Page: Lord Touhig (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Touhig's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(4 years ago)
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Lord Bethell
My noble friend Lady McIntosh is quite right that we should look at several different workstreams for our track and trace model. As the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, implied, one of the most important things to consider is having surge capacity. Track and trace is very important when you have an outbreak or second epidemic. We need to have in place that additional capacity to track down and isolate those who bring in new infection.
Lord Touhig (Lab)
My Lords, refugees and people with irregular status who are medically extremely vulnerable are being deterred from seeking treatment because of concerns around immigration enforcement and charging. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that no one in these circumstances is discouraged or prevented from receiving the treatment that they need?
Lord Bethell
The noble Lord raises an issue that I remember was raised during discussions on the emergency Coronavirus Bill. It is my understanding that a generous and open-hearted view is taken on the treatment of those with irregular status in the UK. Now is clearly not the time to try to put in prison those who have irregular status. The precise arrangements escape me, but I would be glad to write to the noble Lord with a precise description.