Respiratory Syncytial Virus

Lord Turnberg Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Markham (Con)]

Yes. I should probably declare an interest, having set up a PCR business—in the private sector, I might add. I know at first hand from that how versatile these PCR machines are. They can be used to diagnose all these sorts of treatments, so we absolutely have to make sure we keep that strategic capacity alive.

[Lord Turnberg (Lab)]

My Lords, we were obviously ill prepared for the Covid outbreak. How prepared does the Minister think we are now for track and trace and delivery of PCR tests? What resources do we have in place to cover that?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

We have the PCR capacity in place. Clearly, as responsible Ministers spending-wise, we are ramping some of that down because we do not need the sort of capacity we had before. From personal knowledge, I can promise that there are a lot of these PCR machines knocking around, so that capacity really is there. There was a Question a few days ago about how prepared we are for the next epidemic. Clearly, we will get the findings of the Covid inquiry, but the whole purpose of setting up the UKHSA was to make sure we have the proper preparations around for next time.