Oral Answers to Questions
Rupa Huq Excerpts(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Let us head to Dr Rupa Huq for our final question. I am sorry about this, but we have taken a long time to get to this stage.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab) [V]
Matt Hancock
I am very happy to take up that proposal. Nobody should be harassed when accessing any medical treatment. There are agreed rules around abortion and people should be able to access abortion properly, according to those rules.
Covid-19 Update
Rupa Huq Excerpts(3 years, 10 months ago)
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Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
The jury is still out on whether every vaccine can eliminate every covid variant, but we know that vitamin D builds immunity to all viruses. The Secretary of State promises a four-month free supply for the vulnerable, but how come nobody has heard of it? Will he commit to widely advertising it and its benefit to all Brits?
Matt Hancock
Yes, indeed I have, and I have written to more than a million people about the availability of vitamin D. Indeed, I know that that offer is being taken up, because there are Members of this House who have received their free vitamin D, taken a photograph of it and sent me the photo.
Oral Answers to Questions
Rupa Huq Excerpts(3 years, 11 months ago)
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Nadhim Zahawi
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s continued support, not least in making sure that he examines the data very carefully, which I know he is passionate about. He is absolutely right that 88% of mortality effectively comes from the top four most vulnerable cohorts in the JCVI’s list of nine, and 99% comes from those top nine most vulnerable cohorts.
On that point in time—that point of inflection between community spread and vaccination—I will quote the deputy chief medical officer, Jonathan Van-Tam, who said, “Ask me in a few weeks’ or a few months’ time if it does obviously impact on spread.” The scientists are hopeful, as are we, and as is the Prime Minister—not least because he wants to see the back of these non-pharmaceutical interventions in the economy.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)
The Minister for Health (Edward Argar)
Covid, and particularly the new strain of covid, has had a significant impact on NHS bed capacity. As of 10 January, 30,758 beds across the NHS were occupied by covid patients. In just the past day, that has risen to around 32,000, which is over a third of all available beds. The latest bed occupancy data shows that just shy of 80,000 of the NHS’s roughly 90,000 total general and acute beds were occupied.
Dr Huq [V]
It is great that the NHS, as I have heard locally, is working hard to stop intensive care beds from running out after a decade of no expansion, now that a major incident has been declared in London. However, can the Minister guarantee that this will not just be a bureaucratic exercise? Will we take a population-based approach, listen to clinicians in apportioning capacity and allow hospitals in high-need mixed ethnicity areas, such as Ealing Hospital, which is currently on a black alert, their fair share, rather than the powerful players—the central London teaching hospitals—always getting all the extra allocation?
Edward Argar
I can reassure the hon. Lady that beds and increased capacity, where we put them in place, are allocated on the basis of where they are needed. She is right to highlight the pressure that her local hospital trust, London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust, is under. The team there, as across the NHS, are doing an amazing job, but the critical care bed occupancy rate in her trust was 98.7% on the latest figures I have. That is extremely significant pressure, but I can give her the reassurance that we look to ensure that all areas receive the resources they need.
Covid-19 Update
Rupa Huq Excerpts(3 years, 11 months ago)
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Matt Hancock
Yes, that is our goal. We changed the law to enable more people to inject vaccines and we have a big training programme on now. At the moment, it is the supply that is the rate-limiting step. We want to increase the rate of supply and the NHS’s capacity to deliver it at the same time.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab) [V]
By not needing extreme refrigeration, the new Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is a real breakthrough. Will the Health Secretary tell us how it will be administered to over-80s in care homes or at home who are too immobile to travel and who perhaps have carers, including dementia patients, under the hub-and-spoke model? Locally, ambulances are needed, ICU is full, Ealing Hospital is on a black alert and the way that doctors are being told to use oxygen sparingly is raising suspicions that it is running out. Hub-and-spoke is good on paper, but it may be time that the Secretary of State revisits it, because it keeps throwing up loads of anomalies.
Matt Hancock
The ability of the Oxford vaccine to be easily transported makes a huge difference, because it means we can take it to care homes—we can take the vaccine to the people—rather than the other way round for those who are immobile. Of course, for people who find it easy to travel, it is much more efficient to do it the other way round, so we will have a combination of community roll-out where we take the vaccine to the people and vaccination hubs where people come to get vaccinated. It is all based, as per my previous answer, on optimising the speed of delivery of the vaccine. That is what will both save lives and get us out of the restrictions as fast as possible.
Covid-19 Vaccine Roll-out
Rupa Huq Excerpts(4 years ago)
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Matt Hancock
Yes, we will keep expanding the sites available. Of course, I understand why people want their local hospital to be dispensing the jab. Alongside hospitals and those vaccination centres, we will make sure that we have sites in the community, and we will get them going just as soon as it is safely possible.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
This brilliant news, on which I also congratulate everyone, contrasts with the rather alarming revelations last night that we may be veering towards a no-deal Brexit. If that does occur, could the Secretary of State guarantee that there will be no disruption to the supply chains for all these different vaccines—AstraZeneca, Moderna, Pfizer—and will he also rectify the rather Ealing-shaped hole in hospital provision in north-west London? We have 360,000 people, and we were No. 1 in London for cases recently, so that does need fixing.
Matt Hancock
There is very significant provision for vaccination in London. I will take up the specific point about Ealing, but London, thankfully, is a very well connected and interconnected city. To assure the hon. Member on the point about logistical disruption, we have five contingency plans in total to ensure that we can continue with the vaccination supply no matter the differing types of disruption.
Oral Answers to Questions
Rupa Huq Excerpts(4 years, 1 month ago)
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Matt Hancock
Yes. Vaccines could not be approved if there were not volunteers who were willing to take them and play their part. I want to end this session, if I may, with a tribute to my PPS, my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double), who, along with some other Members of the House, is taking part in a vaccine trial, and therefore doing his bit to make vaccines available to help everybody across this country.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
The Health Secretary will remember—his hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) was there as well—that we had a really good meeting on 2 October about the link between covid and vitamin D. Since then the PM even said, two weeks ago, that good news is on the way. Will the Secretary of State update us on what is happening? The Government are meant to be getting rid of dither and delay. We could be like New Zealand; they have only had 16 deaths in care homes in the whole of this pandemic. What can he do?
Matt Hancock
Yes, we are making progress on that and working on the clinical protocols. I look forward to updating the hon. Lady with more information when a final decision has been made.
Covid-19 Update
Rupa Huq Excerpts(4 years, 1 month ago)
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Matt Hancock
I will write to my right hon. Friend on exactly this matter. Of course, the more that we can do to get the infection rates down during lockdown, the easier it will be to get out of lockdown, and places can get out in lower tiers.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
Have the bumps from me too, Mr Deputy Speaker.
It is good to hear some good news about the vaccine on the way, and hopefully about vitamin D. Earlier in the pandemic, people with non-covid health issues were told not to suffer in silence. Now we hear that non-elective surgeries are being cancelled; I think all are off at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham. What is the advice now? If it is the wrong advice, could this mean the loss of lives?
Matt Hancock
We want as little impact on the rest of NHS activity as possible. Of course, we are having to take that action in some high-prevalence areas. That decision takes into account local circumstances; it is not a blanket, national decision as it was in March. The most important thing that we can all do to keep our NHS open for non-covid treatment is to abide by the rules and have that lockdown in place.
Covid-19 Update
Rupa Huq Excerpts(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Matt Hancock
On the last point, absolutely not. This decision has been taken on the basis of the data across London. We did consider the borough by borough approach that my right hon. Friend understandably advocates, but the decision that we came to was that because cases are rising throughout the capital, it was therefore right for the capital to move as a whole. That was supported by the cross-party team who are working on this at a London level.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
Cases in Ealing have shot up, doubling in the past week and making it now the capital’s coronavirus capital. May I therefore commend the Secretary of State’s approach to the London-wide situation, given its fluidity and that of our city? Will he resist the siren voices on the Conservative Benches saying otherwise? Will he look at additional funding for areas like mine, and other interventions that could help? He knows my position on vitamin D. Has he considered that that could be a high-impact, low-risk, virtually cost-free thing that would make him a hero? What is he waiting for?
Matt Hancock
On the first point, I will say that I will listen to all voices. The voice of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) is far from siren. It is thoughtful, considered and represents his constituents. I will listen to and consider him, my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) and the hon. Lady in trying to get the best public policy outcome, taking into account the health, economic and social consequences of these decisions and choices that we are unfortunately faced with. We should try to carry on that approach of listening to all considered voices.
On the point about vitamin D, I have asked the scientists to look once again at the impact of vitamin D on resistance and immunity. There has been some updated evidence that has come to light in the past few weeks, and I want to ensure that is fully taken into account. I can also tell the hon. Lady that we will be increasing the public messaging around vitamin D to make sure that people get the message that vitamin D can help with broad health and that there is no downside to taking it, and therefore people should consider that.
Point of Order
Rupa Huq Excerpts(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I wonder if I might seek your advice. Exactly a week ago in this Chamber, I asked the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care about the efficacy of vitamin D as an extra bit of armour against coronavirus. He said that he had conducted a trial and there was no effect. It turns out that there was no trial. Apparently it was a National Institute for Health and Care Excellence review of secondary evidence on 1 July. The word “trial” implies fresh evidence, not reheated leftovers. The Secretary of State is here, so I wonder if he can correct the record.
I put this matter in as a written question to the Department of Health and Social Care and the answer came back that it had not been able to answer in time. It was the press office that told me about the secondary review of evidence. Is it not unsatisfactory when we do things through the correct channels and it is the spin doctors who end up answering? Can we do better by not embellishing the facts and by getting things in the proper way?
Mr Speaker
I thank the hon. Member for giving me notice of her point of order. The Secretary of State is here if he wishes to make any comment.
Covid-19 Update
Rupa Huq Excerpts(4 years, 3 months ago)
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Matt Hancock
Yes, of course. My hon. Friend represents one of the finest hospitals not just in the country but in the world. The clinicians who work at Addenbrooke’s and across the country have improved the treatment of coronavirus. We know that treatment with dexamethasone has reduced the death rate. We know that, because of earlier oxygenation and later intubation, that has reduced the death rate. There is also progress with remdesivir. Nevertheless, while that has reduced mortality for those going into hospital, the virus remains deadly, so unfortunately we have to take measures to stop its spread, not least because we can either take measures now or we will end up with a much bigger problem, still having to take measures later.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
Top-rated medical research has continuously linked vitamin D levels with covid incidence. In Norway, where people have high amounts, cases are rare, whereas here, most Brits are deficient. It is rarely found in food, and the main source—sunlight—is about to disappear, with a possible winter NHS crisis on the way. Will the Secretary of State follow the science, as there is no vaccine in sight, and seek to prescribe supplements on the NHS, or at least run a public information campaign? People need something positive now that the nights are drawing in.
Matt Hancock
Vitamin D is one of the many things that we have looked into, to see whether it reduces the incidence or impact of coronavirus. I have seen reports that it does, so we put it into a trial. Unfortunately, the results were that it does not appear to have any impact. That is the latest clinical advice, which is always kept under review.