Oral Answers to Questions

Maggie Throup Excerpts

Tuesday 18th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mark Fletcher (Bolsover) (Con)]

12. What steps his Department is taking to provide additional covid-19 vaccination sites.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maggie Throup)]

To maximise uptake there are now more than 3,000 sites—more than ever—delivering covid-19 vaccines and boosters, including hundreds of walk-in sites. Opening times have been extended to seven days a week. GPs and community pharmacies have been asked to do more vaccinations, and 750 armed forces personnel and 41 military planners have been brought in to every region to help co-ordinate the national effort. The offer of a covid vaccine—a first or second dose, and a booster for those eligible—remains open to everyone.

[Mrs Murray]

In rural areas such as mine in South East Cornwall, it can mean travelling miles to get to the nearest available centre. What ambitions do the Government have to get vaccinations out to the smaller communities to assist those who have yet to be vaccinated to get their jab?

[Maggie Throup]

Well, 99% of the population in England live within 10 miles of a covid-19 vaccination site, and robust plans are in place to ensure that everyone has convenient access to a vaccine. In Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, 85% of those eligible have received their booster or third dose. There are targeted vaccination programmes in Cornwall to support the homeless, Traveller and migrant workers communities and fishermen—a community that has a great champion in my hon. Friend.

For those in more rural Cornwall communities, a further 16 pop-up sessions are organised throughout January, and more are planned to ensure that everyone can get boosted more easily.

[Mark Fletcher]

A number of residents in Bolsover have written to me to ask why there is not a specific vaccination centre in the town. Given that the booster roll-out has slowed locally and given our poor bus connections, could the Minister—as my former Whip, I know that she is incredibly persuasive—look into having a specific site in Bolsover?

[Maggie Throup]

There are now six vaccination sites in the Bolsover district. A regular pop-up clinic was also set up in Shirebrook to address and identify the shortfall in uptake, but that has been phased out as new community pharmacy and primary care network clinics came on board to support the local vaccination programme and increase the number of Bolsover sites at the end of 2021. I am sure that my hon. Friend will be delighted to hear that a new roving vaccination van is being deployed across Derbyshire. It will visit Bolsover and surrounding villages to provide extra capacity and ensure that everyone has another way to get their booster jab. It will also allow those not yet vaccinated to come forward for this life-saving protection.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Undoubtedly, additional vaccine sites in rural communities will increase vaccine uptake, which is vital. However, does the Minister agree that, for NHS staff, counselling and one-to-one conversations are right and far more effective than the Government’s current plan potentially to sack the 5% of hospital staff in the Morecambe Bay region and indeed across the country who have not been vaccinated? That would cause a serious capacity problem in the NHS.

[Maggie Throup]

I reassure the hon. Gentleman that we are talking about patient safety. He is quite right that it is important to have that dialogue, and I know that colleagues across the board in the NHS are having that. It is interesting to note that more than 94% of NHS staff have already had their vaccine, and I commend them for that. As the chief medical officer Chris Whitty rightly said, those looking after other people who are very vulnerable have a “professional responsibility” to get vaccinated.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

Access to vaccinations in remote areas is incredibly important, but so is a general health strategy for clinically very vulnerable people. Young Lara in my constituency had the organ that she desperately needed for a double organ transplant, but unfortunately there was no bed in intensive care for her to have the operation. What strategy is the Department taking in general for our clinically vulnerable to provide access to operating theatres so that there is a focus not just on vaccination but on the multiple health conditions that so many of them suffer across the board?

[Maggie Throup]

The hon. Lady makes a really good point. I reassure her that procedures for urgent cases have not been cancelled. As the House knows, we are looking at the private sector to help deliver vital support for those patients.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

4. What assessment he has made of the capacity of the UK’s covid-19 testing infrastructure in comparison to other countries.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maggie Throup)]

The UK continues to provide one of the highest testing rates globally. We have increased capacity for PCR testing by over 200,000 tests per day since December. Home delivery capacity is now at 7 million lateral flow tests every day, with community pharmacies supplying an additional 9.5 million tests last week. In comparison to England, countries that have put in place more restrictions might have chosen a different balance between lateral flow devices and PCRs to meet their individual testing demands. Therefore, we cannot meaningfully compare our testing infrastructure to that of other countries.

[Mike Wood]

I thank the Minister for that answer. Health and social care workers who care for some of the most clinically vulnerable members of our society were rightly prioritised for early vaccination. Does she agree that, similarly, they must be prioritised for testing? What is she doing to ensure that?

[Maggie Throup]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. The most vulnerable people are being prioritised. The UK Health Security Agency and NHS Test and Trace currently deliver an average of more than 70,000 PCR kits and 970,000 LFD kits a week to adult social care settings. In recent weeks, as demand has increased due to the omicron wave, Dudley, like other local authorities, has provided tests to key workers to enable them to keep working.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Minister for her response. The Government have recently announced that self-isolation will be cut to five days, given a negative lateral flow test. Has the Minister come to an assessment on the impact that will have on demand for lateral flow tests, given the struggle many have faced trying to obtain a box of them in recent weeks?

[Maggie Throup]

As we look at policy and amend it like we did last week, it is right that we make sure that we can fill those requirements. I reassure the hon. Gentleman that we can, and we have increased the procurement of lateral flow devices. This month, we will get another 750 million lateral flow devices into the UK for January and February.

[Matt Hancock (West Suffolk) (Con)]

I am sure the whole House will welcome the early signs of falling numbers of people in hospital with covid. Does the Minister have any comments on the news yesterday from the World Health Organisation that it thinks that the UK looks set to be one of the first countries out of the pandemic, and how much weight does she put on the vaccination and booster programme, and the colossal scale of our testing availability, in that achievement?

[Maggie Throup]

My right hon. Friend makes a really good point. We know that omicron numbers are still really high, and we still have more than 2,000 people hospitalised every day, so we do need to be cautious. But my hon. Friend is right, in that our vaccine and testing programmes have been vital in being able to tackle this deadly virus. I encourage everybody to get their booster and, if they have not come forward for their first or second jab, to get those too.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

5. What plans his Department has to ensure that there is an adequate supply of covid-19 tests during the covid-19 outbreak.

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[John Mc Nally (Falkirk) (SNP)]

8. What recent steps the Government have taken to progress the introduction of mandatory folic acid supplementation in flour to prevent spinal conditions in babies.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maggie Throup)]

Following consultation last September, we announced that we would legislate to fortify non-wholemeal wheat flour with folic acid. We are working at pace to move this policy forward, and we have already engaged with industry as part of a cross-Government review of bread and flour regulations. All four nations are now working closely together to develop the draft legislation and impact assessment for future consultation.

[John Mc Nally]

I thank the Minister for her answer. As she knows, the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition has recommended mandatory folic acid fortification of flour. The UK Government launched a public consultation that closed in 2019. In September last year, the UK Government announced that folic acid will be added to non-wholemeal wheat flour across the UK to help to prevent life-threatening spinal conditions in babies. Therefore, can the Minister update the House on the UK Government’s timeline to implement the decision in a wee bit more detail, please?

[Maggie Throup]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising this important issue, because fortifying non-wholemeal wheat flour with folic acid will help to prevent hundreds of neural tube defects in foetuses every year. I regret that I cannot commit to a specific timetable, but we need to consult on the draft legislation and will look to give industry appropriate notice. All four nations are working together on the timetable and hope to deliver this important policy as soon as possible.

[Craig Tracey (North Warwickshire) (Con)]

9. What steps his Department is taking to help (a) maximise NHS capacity and (b) increase the NHS’s resilience during the covid-19 outbreak.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maggie Throup)]

Vaccination continues to offer our best line of defence against hospitalisation due to covid-19. The latest data shows vaccine effectiveness against hospitalisation with the omicron variant was 58% after one dose and 64% up to 24 weeks after two doses. Vaccine effectiveness against hospitalisation was 92% in the first two to four weeks after a third dose or booster and 83% after 10 or more weeks. Those who are unvaccinated are eight times more likely to be hospitalised. That is why it is so important that everybody takes up the offer to get boosted.

[Dr Murrison]

I thank the Minister for that reply. The facts are that the vaccination programme has been massively successful in reducing hospitalisation, particularly admission to intensive therapy units. So will the Minister confirm that, on 26 January, particularly given what we now know about the nature of the covid variant that we are currently struggling with, those regulations will lapse? Will she further confirm that she will amend advice on working from home? Most importantly, will she ensure that we reverse the counterproductive compulsory vaccination of NHS staff that the Government’s own figures suggest—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Come on, we cannot have questions that are so long.

[Maggie Throup]

Although evidence shows that the omicron variant causes less severe disease than previous variants, yesterday in England we still had over 16,000 covid patients in hospital and over 84,000 reported cases. Plan B measures are currently in place in England, and will be reviewed before the regulations expire on 26 January. The best thing everyone can do to help to keep the virus under control is to keep coming forward for booster jabs to help to stop the spread of infection and manage the immediate pressures on the NHS.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am seriously concerned about the rapidly depleting efficacy of the vaccine—at 10 weeks, between 40% and 50% protection—and therefore my question to the Minister is: what happens next? Already we are talking about a mandatory programme of vaccine for NHS staff which will see depletion after 10 weeks, but also public health measures may be removed: what next after the booster?

[Maggie Throup]

I would like to reassure the hon. Lady that the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation is monitoring this all the time, and we take advice from the JCVI.

[Nicola Richards (West Bromwich East) (Con)]

11. What steps his Department is taking to reduce waiting times for face-to-face GP appointments.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maggie Throup)]

From the start of the pandemic, the UK has worked to support equitable access to covid-19 vaccines. It helped to establish the international joint procurement initiative COVAX, which supports higher and lower-income countries in securing the vaccines they need. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has indicated, we are committed to delivering 100 million doses by mid-June; we had delivered more than 30 million by the end of 2021. The UK leads the way on variants through the UK Health Security Agency, and we are willing to progress that technology throughout the world.

[Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

T8. Building the women’s and children’s hospital at the Royal Cornwall Hospital was a key promise of this Government, and the Secretary of State’s predecessor was very supportive of it. Will my hon. Friend reaffirm the Department’s commitment to the building and agree to meet me to ensure that everything is done to get this vital project delivered on time?

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[Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)]

T9. Can my right hon. Friend tell the House how he is making it easier for transport workers, who are disproportionately under-vaccinated, to get their jabs and get this country moving?

[Maggie Throup]

We are intent on making vaccines as accessible as possible, so there are now more vaccination sites than at any point in the programme. They operate 12 hours a day, seven days a week where possible, including at hundreds of walk-in and pop-up sites. In every community, there should be slots available at least 16 hours a day; in some places, that is extended to 24 hours a day to support workers such as those in the transport sector, who often work unsociable hours.

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State has introduced guidance for essential care givers so that family members can visit loved ones in care homes. Is he considering going further to guarantee the right to visit residents in care homes and patients in hospitals?