Covid-19 Response

Philip Dunne Excerpts

Monday 18th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

That is an incredibly important question, and one of the purposes of the £600 million extra that we are putting into the social care system and that will go direct to the frontline—local authorities are not allowed to use it for other purposes—is to ensure that when social care staff need to be away from work for infection control purposes, they are not penalised for doing so.

[Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con) [V]]

I join my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) and my right hon. Friend in welcoming approval of an antibody test for use in the UK. I understand my right hon. Friend cannot elaborate on the timetable for its introduction, but can he tell us whether he is preparing for individuals to be able to input the results of an antibody test into the NHS covid app to help demonstrate their immunity and improve our understanding of the prevalence of this wretched virus?

[Matt Hancock]

It is not through the covid app, but we have a process for people inputting whether they think they have had the virus. As and when we manage to land an agreement on antibody testing the proposition my right hon. Friend makes is a very good one. After all, at the moment the science is not clear as to the level of immunity and the risk that we pose of transmitting to others if we have antibodies, as many of us who have had the virus hope that we have, but as the science becomes clearer, so we will also be able to be clearer with our guidance to people who have a degree of immunity on what they can do.