Asked by: Mark Harper (Conservative - Forest of Dean)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of using mobile vaccination centres to reach remote communities.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
Currently, in England, more than 98% of the population is within 10 miles of a vaccine service. In a small number of highly rural areas, the vaccination centre will be a mobile unit.
Asked by: Mark Harper (Conservative - Forest of Dean)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, for what reasons he has not yet answered Question 81646, tabled on 28 August 2020; and when he plans to respond to that Question.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
I refer the Rt hon. Member to the answer to Question 81646 on 3 November.
Asked by: Mark Harper (Conservative - Forest of Dean)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when the 5,000 DNA Nudgebox machines will be rolled out across NHS hospitals.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
To date 114 DNA Nudgeboxes, which equates to 1,140 tests per day capacity, has been delivered to hospitals and mental health units in England. DNA Nudge continue to increase their deployment capabilities and speed and are in a good position to deliver the contracted 5,000 Nudgeboxes as per agreed timelines in 2021.
Asked by: Mark Harper (Conservative - Forest of Dean)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, for what reasons he has not yet answered Question 84658, tabled on 3 September 2020; and when he plans to answer that Question.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
I refer the Rt hon. Member to the answer I gave to Question 84658 on 12 October.
Asked by: Mark Harper (Conservative - Forest of Dean)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, for what reasons he has not yet answered Question 94354, tabled on 23 September 2020; and when he plans to respond to that Question.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
I refer the Rt hon. Member to the answer I gave to Question 94354 on 6 October.
Asked by: Mark Harper (Conservative - Forest of Dean)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what information (a) his Department, (b) NHS England, (c) Public Health England and (d) NHS Test & Trace holds on transmission routes of covid-19 in different geographical areas and their relative importance; and if he will make it his policy to publish that information.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
To help understand the circumstances in which COVID-19 is transmitted, a wide variety of real-time data at both local and national level is published in the Weekly COVID19 Surveillance Report on GOV.UK.
The virus is transmitted when a contact spends time with someone who has COVID-19. This includes face-to-face contact (for one minute), being coughed on, or spending more than 15 minutes within two metres of someone with COVID-19. While those who test positive cannot say for certain where (event) they picked up the infection, they can indicate possible places. Data from 13 to 20 September shows the most common potential event positive cases indicated where they may have picked up the virus as eating out (14.6%), followed by shopping (13.4%). Then for contacts of a known positive case this was indicated from within households (59.8%), followed by visiting the positive case in their household (13.7%).
We currently do not have this information published by geographical area.
Asked by: Mark Harper (Conservative - Forest of Dean)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will publish the (a) existing and (b) planned covid-19 daily testing capacity separately for (i) antigen testing and (ii) antibody testing.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government currently has no plans to publish testing capacity in this format. We publish daily testing capacity for combined pillar 1 to 4 testing and combined pillar 1 and 2 testing at the following link:
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/
We also publish weekly statistics and the latest information regarding the Test and Trace service at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/nhs-test-and-trace-statistics-england-weekly-reports
Asked by: Mark Harper (Conservative - Forest of Dean)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Prime Minister's oral contribution on covid-19 of 22 September 2020, Official Report, column 797, what advice SAGE provided to the Government on the effect on the R number of closing hospitality venues at 10pm.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
The Government receives a range of inputs in order to make all of its decisions relating to covid-19 restrictions, including inputs from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), from monitoring the impact of restrictions in local areas via the Joint Biosecurity Centre and monitoring international experience. SAGE has reviewed multiple options to reduce the ‘R’ number.
Asked by: Mark Harper (Conservative - Forest of Dean)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to publish the (a) proportion of people tested who test positive for covid-19 and (b) red, amber, green risk rating assessed by Public Health England for each geographical area as part of the regular publication of covid-19 testing data.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Since July 2020, the Joint Biosecurity Centre, NHS Test and Trace and Public Health England (PHE) have published the Contain Framework Lower Tier Local Authority Watchlist weekly, which list the lower tier local authorities with the highest weekly incidence rates alongside trend, and a range of other supporting evidence and analysis. This list is published as part of PHE’s Weekly 2019 COVID-19 Surveillance Report. Additionally, NHS Test and Trace publishes weekly statistical bulletins which includes weekly data on people tested for COVID-19 and those who tested positive in England. The reports are available at the following links:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-covid-19-surveillance-reports
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/nhs-test-and-trace-statistics-england-weekly-reports
Asked by: Mark Harper (Conservative - Forest of Dean)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will take steps to increase laboratory capacity in the covid-19 antigen testing system.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We have built the largest diagnostic testing industry in British history at pace, from scratch. We are scaling up our testing capacity even further to 500,000 tests a day by the end of October. We are augmenting the existing diagnostic network with additional laboratories and adding capacity this month and throughout the autumn.