Coronavirus

Navendu Mishra Excerpts
Tuesday 15th September 2020

(4 years, 2 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Matt Hancock Portrait Matt Hancock
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I will absolutely look at my hon. Friend’s request on King’s Lynn. Thankfully, after an outbreak a couple of weeks ago, the number of positive test results in Norfolk has come right down. I commend the work of Norfolk County Council, my hon. Friend and colleagues from across Norfolk, who have done so much to ensure that the public messages get through. On the “moonshot”, we do not have and have not had any plans for 10 million tests a day, but we do have a goal to get to the millions of tests a day when we can. That is dependent on new technology, so that is what we need to drive forward. It is vital for this country, for the resolution of exactly the problems we are talking about today, and then for expanding testing availability more widely that we really embrace those new technologies.

Navendu Mishra Portrait Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)
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Yesterday, I was contacted by an NHS nurse who had spent the weekend unsuccessfully trying to get a test for her symptomatic seven-year-old. On Friday, I visited the new Brinnington test centre in my constituency. It was very quiet, yet it seems to have been unable to offer a test to a nurse, who, it seems, will now need to take time off work. Is that what world-beating looks like? What is going on?

Matt Hancock Portrait Matt Hancock
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Again, I am happy to try to solve the individual issue for the nurse, not least because the figures that I read out for Stockport do not include the NHS capacity, which is there for NHS staff in order to resolve exactly the sort of issue that the hon. Gentleman talks about.