Covid-19

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I will study what the hon. Lady says about the testing unit at Hull University. Everywhere across the country, NHS Test and Trace has been working hand in glove with local authorities to get testing done and hand in glove with Public Health England and of course all our public services. I am surprised by what she says about the testing unit at Hull University, but I will certainly ask NHS Test and Trace to give her a full explanation. In my experience, everything is done to enlist and mobilise the expertise of local government to get the testing done.

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Many people are concerned that, with this dominant focus on covid, people who need NHS treatment for other illnesses or are seeking elective surgery will be pushed further back in the queue, so will the Prime Minister assure us and make sure that the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care gives priority to communicating the progress made in dealing with the backlog in surgeries as we go through the winter period?

[The Prime Minister]

Of course we must do everything we can to ensure that our NHS is not overwhelmed with covid cases. It is when we have a covid crisis—a boom in covid cases—that, as my hon. Friend rightly points out, other needs, including cardiac and cancer cases, are pushed off. That is completely wrong, which is why it is now so vital that we suppress the R—that we drive the rate of infection down—and stop a boom in covid cases, because that is the threat to our NHS and to the provision of all the basic services on which our country relies.