Covid-19 Update

Mark Menzies Excerpts

Wednesday 30th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I will absolutely arrange a meeting between the vaccine roll-out Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), and the right hon. Gentleman to look into that case in particular. Around seven in 10 of the vaccines deployed so far have gone to those over 80. The rest have gone to NHS and care home staff, and to some residents in older persons’ care homes who are under the age of 80. We are deploying the Pfizer jab to older people right now, and we have to do that as fast as possible to make sure that, when there are cases such as the one he raises, we get it sorted.

[Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con) [V]]

I begin by joining the Secretary of State in thanking those in the NHS for the work they are doing at this incredible time. I also recognise that he has never shirked from taking really tough decisions, and that has no doubt saved lives.

I have many care homes in Fylde, including lots of small care homes, family-run care homes and assisted-living homes. Can the Secretary of State assure me that work is being done to ensure that we can get the vaccine into those small care homes very quickly and speedily in the coming weeks?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, absolutely. My hon. Friend is kind in what he says, and I am grateful for his support for the approach that we have taken throughout the pandemic—I really appreciate it. As he says, it is precisely in order to save lives that we have taken the actions that we have. It has been harder to get the Pfizer jab to the smaller care homes because of the minus 70° storage requirements. That is much easier with the AstraZeneca vaccine, and today the NHS has written to GPs who are running the vaccines programme to stress the importance of getting the vaccine to care home residents and staff as soon as possible.