Public Health

Luke Evans Excerpts

Wednesday 30th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)]

Today is a bittersweet end to the year. The news is sweet nationally, as we hear of another new vaccine coming online in the fight against the coronavirus, and because we have got the Brexit deal done. That is hugely important to my constituents, the majority of whom voted for Brexit, but it also gives us the chance to pull remain and leave together to look forward, I hope, to an outward future for 2021. However, the news is bitter locally, because my constituency and the entire region in which I live are moving into tier 4. With that comes all the heartache, anxiety, stress, morbidity and mortality that go with increasing rates of covid.

I accept that decision, and I think it is the right thing. I have had contact with the hospitals that serve my area and the clinical commissioning group in Leicestershire. Some 30% of my patients go across towards the George Eliot, and both the health organisations there have talked about the pressure on the NHS—not only the numbers of covid patients coming in, but the pressure on non-covid services and the impact of covid on staffing, with the real threat posed by absences. Those things combined make for a really difficult issue.

On top of that, our rates are steadily increasing, although in my patch, in particular, we are lower than the national average. That all comes on top of the new strains that we have heard about in the last few weeks. I believe the Government were right to take the decisions that they took, and to change when the information changes. That is why I am pleased to welcome the Government’s dropping of the 14 days of isolation to 10 days. As the science changes and as we know more, we should change our approach and do something different.

That leads me on to my asks for the Government, and they are threefold. First, I have previously welcomed the Government’s approach of structuring their focus and putting the NHS first, followed by education, businesses, health and leisure activities, and then the hospitality industry. However, as we have ratcheted back up with the new tiers, we clearly still have the fundamental problems of providing support for things such as the travel industry, the pubs, the restaurants, the events industry and the wedding industry. Those problems are not going away. Fortunately, with the advent of a vaccine, the period is time-limited, so I urge the Government to consider putting in further support for those businesses to try to get them through.

My second ask is about the vaccine roll-out. As I said, I really welcome the fact that the Oxford vaccine has now come on line and will be going live from 4 January, with more than 500,000 vaccinations going out in the first week. It is also really good news that Ministers are reassuring us that the infrastructure is there and that as the supply becomes greater so too will the delivery, getting the fight against this virus under way. However, I am concerned about, and would like the Government to address, what happens when 10% or 20% of the population are vaccinated. For me, there is a real issue. As the public start to see people getting vaccinated, the way they behave may well change and in turn create a vicious spiral, where we elongate the period under covid and the need for further tiered restrictions because people feel that it is safe to go out. A strong message must come from the Government to make sure that people adhere to the restrictions and to give us an idea of what the saturation point for covid will look like. As the science changes, so should the advice.

Finally, in my last minute, I would like to raise something that I raised in the summer. Given that the end of the covid debacle is hopefully in sight, be it in the spring or the summer, I would like to push again for a Department of virus legacy—a time-limited Department to look at all the changes that have taken place during the covid pandemic. After all, covid has hit every aspect of our working lives and, indeed, our social lives—sometimes for good, and sometimes for bad. It is really important for the future to understand the lessons learned and to capitalise on the changes in my sphere of medicine, for example, where we now have telemedicine, better communications, a huge diagnostic network and a much improved vaccine programme, which will cover the entire nation. All those things should be looked at and capitalised on to make sure we have something that will stand the test of time if we ever face another virus.