Covid-19: Vaccinations

Maria Miller Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

The people of Strangford will be pleased to hear that the hon. Member’s mother has got her first a dose of the vaccine. This is an important message to send to the whole country: if you are called up and have an appointment to get the vaccine, please turn up. This vaccine can protect your life. It can protect somebody else’s life. It is a shame to not turn up if you have booked an appointment. The NHS in England has made sure that the hospital hubs and primary care networks that have been vaccinating, and now the national vaccination centres, have on speed dial the care home workers and those on the frontline of the battle against covid who are in the JCVI’s top four cohorts, so that they can get them in as quickly as possible and not a single dose is wasted.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con) [V]]

I thank my hon. Friend for his incredible tenacity on such an important project. Our local vaccine centre in Basingstoke serves six primary care networks across Hampshire, and under his plan, 20,000 over-75s should receive their first vaccination at this hub from our army of volunteers and local NHS staff in the next 35 days. Can my hon. Friend say how the large difference in patient numbers at each hub is factored in when vaccine supplies are dispatched? I reiterate the need for clinical commissioning group-level data to monitor progress. Can he more urgently reconsider the priority given to teachers, please?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I think I dealt with the question of teachers earlier, which is incredibly important. Phase one is to focus on those who are most vulnerable to dying from this disease. As soon as we get through that to phase two, teachers and other frontline services, including police officers and others, will be absolutely uppermost in our minds and those of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, which helps us with that prioritisation.

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise the issue of vaccine supply, and I know that her local vaccination service has done a tremendous job. There was a slight hiccup, if I can describe it as that, in making sure that they were recognised as six primary networks in the system. We rectified that, and I assure her that the volumes, certainly those of which I have line of sight, will mean that the service will receive plenty of vaccines to hit that target by mid-February of offering the top four cohorts the opportunity of the vaccine.