Coronavirus Update

Martin Vickers Excerpts

Tuesday 14th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

The Nightingales project was one of the most successful projects in the history of the NHS—building the Nightingales in nine days was something that many people in this country thought would be impossible—but the Nightingales were designed very specifically for intubated patients who were not conscious. They were not built to be effective and useable for people who are, and there are some very practical reasons for that. I understand the hon. Lady’s call to use the Nightingales for other reasons, but they were built with a specific intention in mind; they met that intention, and they were a great success.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

The pandemic has inevitably led to a backlog in other treatments, which is causing anxiety among my constituents. Can my right hon. Friend give an assurance that the Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust and the two clinical commissioning groups that serve my constituency will have the additional resources that they need to meet the backlog?

[Matt Hancock]

It is vital that we deal with the back- log of cases that is building up because of the absolutely necessary requirement, in the peak of the crisis, to pause a lot of activity. I can absolutely assure my hon. Friend that we will continue to support and protect the NHS, including with increased resources.

That point brings me back to something that the hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) said at the start and that I should have responded to. He seemed to complain about the £1.5 billion of capital funding that we have put into the NHS recently, but of course it is also very important that we take forward measures to ensure that there is capacity there, too.