Covid-19 Update

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

My hon. Friend is quite right to ask about that, but it is not just Public Health England—it is right across the board. It is about taking steps in the NHS and in test and trace to grow capacity in contact tracing. My right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) just asked about testing capacity; we need to know that that is there right across the board. Public Health England has its responsibilities, but so do we all.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am delighted that the Secretary of State is so keen on data. My local clinical commissioning group tells me that it is still not getting the right data to GPs—it is quite clunky—and I think it is right in saying that GPs can see comorbidities, so it is particularly important that they get data about people who have been tested. We currently have an outbreak in the north of my borough and although we have the postcode data, we do not yet have the full address data, which is isolated to households. If we can get that very precise location, it will prevent a local lockdown. Surely the track-and-tracers are getting that data; can they get it to local authorities so that we can handle this situation locally?

[Matt Hancock]

I will personally ensure that all the data that we have on the hon. Lady’s borough is made available to her borough—subject to a data sharing agreement, which I think is in place with Hackney—so that it can best address the situation. It may be that we do not have the data that is being sought, in which case we will be straightforward and open about that and we might want to have a discussion about whether we can get any further data that is necessary.