Vaccine Roll-out Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Peter Bottomley
Main Page: Peter Bottomley (Conservative - Worthing West)Department Debates - View all Peter Bottomley's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(3 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Let us head to the Father of the House in Worthing, Sir Peter Bottomley.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con) [V]
May I add to the good questions asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman)? My question was raised, in effect, by Shelagh Fogarty of LBC in The Daily Telegraph today, who wrote about confusion regarding the housebound as well as the homebound. We know that people are going to be vaccinated in mass centres—I had the chance to see one yesterday—and in local hubs and at home, but too often people are sitting at home wondering which it is likely to be. Could the Secretary of State get the partnerships for integrated care—the sustainability and transformation partnerships—to make public how soon they expect to get to most of those who are over 80, especially in semi-rural constituencies?
Matt Hancock
I can answer my hon. Friend’s question: we will offer vaccination to everybody in the top four categories—the over-70s, the clinically extremely vulnerable and health and social care workers, including the residents in older people’s care homes—by 15 February. I am sure that my hon. Friend, like me and like many of us in this House, gets asked by constituents all the time, “When will the call come for me?” The answer is that we are working through that list and we will reach all those groups with an offer to be vaccinated on or before 15 February.
The exact order within that queue is for a local area to decide, and sometimes people might get invited to two different methods of vaccination, such as at one of the big sites and by their local GP, and for people who are housebound there are roving teams led by the local primary care networks to get out and vaccinate them. So the offer will come, and people should be assured that while, as of today, around two thirds of all over-80s have been vaccinated—which is very, very good progress—that means there is a third still to go, and we will get to everyone and make sure everyone gets that offer to be vaccinated by 15 Feb.