Coronavirus Vaccine

Selaine Saxby Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I gently advise the hon. Member and other Scottish National party Members not to try to make this comparison. I looked into this matter in some detail when somebody else raised it. It turns out that the figures are only comparable if one strips out finding contacts in places where it is easy to get the contacts, such as care homes, because everybody who lives in them can easily be accounted for. Comparing apples and pears like this is not sensible and it is not right. Trying to drive a wedge between the public and private element of the system’s provision—which, by the way, Scotland also has—is a mistake.

[Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)]

I, too, thank everyone involved in today’s good news from North Devon. My right hon. Friend will know that the Nightingale in Exeter has now opened, but he will also know that we are seeing a large number of NHS staff absences across Devon. Can he assure me that the Government are doing everything they can to keep staff safe, and to ensure that we have enough staff to keep all hospitals in Devon running as they should?

[Matt Hancock]

My hon. Friend is right to raise this important issue. I am glad to say that we have more staff working in the NHS in Devon over the last year and we have increased the number of nurses nationally by over 14,000, but there are also those absent because of covid. I hope that regular testing will help to bring that number down; and then, of course, there is the vaccine, which I hope will solve this problem once and for all.