Covid-19 Vaccine Roll-out Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Nick Smith
Main Page: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent and Rhymney)Department Debates - View all Nick Smith's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(4 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Matt Hancock
Yes, absolutely. We have started at 70 hospitals across the UK. Those are the ones that are best able to deal with the difficult logistics of a vaccine that has to be stored at minus 70° C. I understand the desire for every hospital to get on that list, and we will publish a further list later today. My local hospital, the West Suffolk, is also not yet administering vaccines. The other critical part of this is the primary care networks—the community roll-out—which will get us to many, many more sites where people are able to access the vaccine, so that in Scunthorpe and across the whole of the UK, everybody is able to access this vaccine as fairly and safely as possible.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
It is brilliant that the vaccine programme is beginning, but unfortunately, there are real question marks over who is benefiting from some of the covid-19 contracts. How will the Secretary of State ensure that cronyism and profiteering do not become features of this stage of the covid-19 response?
Matt Hancock
Thankfully, as the National Audit Office set out, they have not been a feature of any of the response to coronavirus, so that is good.