To match an exact phrase, use quotation marks around the search term. eg. "Parliamentary Estate". Use "OR" or "AND" as link words to form more complex queries.


Keep yourself up-to-date with the latest developments by exploring our subscription options to receive notifications direct to your inbox

Written Question
Travel: Quarantine
Monday 18th October 2021

Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what formal (a) complaints and (b) other processes are in place to ensure that the hotels being used for covid-19 quarantine following international travel are held accountable by (i) service users and (ii) his Department.

Answered by Maggie Throup

The Department contracts Managed Quarantine Service hotels via Corporate Travel Management (CTM). Initial complaints are raised with CTM to address with hotels. In addition, the Department has deployed liaison officers to liaise with hotels in England to ensure that Standard Operating Procedures are being adhered to in line with any contractual standards. The Department’s contract management and commercial teams monitor standards and performance and will terminate contracts where performance or standards remain below requirements.


Written Question
Travel: Quarantine
Monday 18th October 2021

Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether hotels that are being used for covid-19 quarantine following international travel are required to conduct risk assessments for people who are quarantining there.

Answered by Maggie Throup

Prior to any hotel or establishment becoming a Managed Quarantine Service (MQS) facility, a complete risk assessment is carried out. MQS hotels comply fully with all regulatory and legislative requirements including those relating to health and safety, COVID-19 protocols and fire risk. All assessments incorporate guidance from Public Health England and the Health and Safety Executive.


Written Question
Travel: Quarantine
Monday 18th October 2021

Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what medical duty of care exists for hotel providers being used for covid-19 quarantine following international travel.

Answered by Maggie Throup

The duty of care for medical provision should a passenger or guest present with symptoms other than COVID-19 rests with the National Health Service. All managed quarantine facilities’ staff, security and testing staff ensure that every guest is kept in a safe environment and that the potential for exposure to others within the facility who may have tested positive for COVID-19 is minimised.


Written Question
Coronavirus: Vaccination
Monday 6th September 2021

Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to reduce covid-19 vaccine wastage; and what action is taken with unused vaccines.

Answered by Nadhim Zahawi

No vaccines should be wasted. All vaccination centres should have a backup list of people in the cohorts currently being vaccinated, who can be called in case doses would be wasted. This is in line with the Enhanced Service Specification for the COVID-19 vaccination programme 2020/21.

We have put in place robust mitigations throughout the vaccination programme to reduce wastage, manage expiry dates, and avoid vaccine destruction, including, where there is data to support it, looking at the extension of expiry dates.

The United Kingdom is also one of the largest donors to COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX). We will donate at least 100 million surplus doses within the next year, with the first batch of five million already delivered last month.


Written Question
Coronavirus: Vaccination
Friday 9th April 2021

Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the Government is collecting data on Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic covid-19 vaccinations (a) administered and (b) refused by vaccination type.

Answered by Nadhim Zahawi

NHS England provides a weekly breakdown of first and second COVID-19 vaccinations in people who are from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, which is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-vaccinations/

We do not hold data on vaccinations administered by vaccination type and we do not collect information on those who refuse the vaccine.


Written Question
Coronavirus: Ethnic Groups
Wednesday 10th February 2021

Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions he has had with the Minister for the Cabinet Office on ensuring the adequacy of covid-19 data being collected by the Government on (a) ethnicity and (b) demographics.

Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care regularly discusses a wide range of COVID-19 related matters with Cabinet colleagues.

Following the release of the Public Health England review into disparities in the risks and outcomes of COVID-19 in June 2020, the Minister for Equalities (Kemi Badenoch MP) is considering where and how the collection and quality of data, including around ethnicity and demographics, can be improved on, working with the Equality Hub, Government departments and their agencies.


Written Question
Coronavirus
Wednesday 3rd February 2021

Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what demographic information is being collated by the Government on (a) new covid-19 infections, (b) deaths where covid-19 is a determinable factor as defined by the Government, (c) people who have received the first dose of the covid-19 vaccine and (d) people who have received both doses of the covid-19 vaccine.

Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Public Health England (PHE) collects data on new positive COVID-19 cases including age, sex, place of residence and ethnicity. PHE publishes the number of deaths among persons with a laboratory-confirmed positive COVID-19 test who died within 28 days of the first positive specimen date by age and ethnicity in the weekly National Flu and COVID-19 Surveillance report.

The Office for National Statistics publishes deaths involving COVID-19, based on death registrations, by individual occupations for those aged 20-64 years old and also those aged 65 years old and over.

Demographic data including age, sex, ethnicity, general practice (GP) data and employee data for national health service staff, feeds into the national immunisation management service (NIMS) to identify COVID-19 vaccine eligible groups. This data is used to invite eligible people for vaccination and individual vaccination data feeds back into the NIMS. Data from the NIMS also feeds into GP systems to update the individual's electronic health record with their vaccination history.

NHS England collects data and publish weekly data including the count of vaccinations by age band, defined as over 80 years old and under 80 years old, by ethnicity, by National Health Service region and by dose.


Written Question
Coronavirus: Birmingham
Monday 2nd November 2020

Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many confirmed covid-19 cases have been recorded under (a) pillar 1 and (b) pillar 2 testing for the city of Birmingham metropolitan borough.

Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

All upper tier local authorities have access to record level (including sex, age, occupation and postcode) test and case data.

We also publish public dashboards at a national, regional and local authority level and the Middle Layer Super Output Area (MSOA) map, which allows individuals to type in a postcode to find their MSOA and see how many cases there are in small areas of around 7,000 people


Data on the 7 day average for the number of people with COVID-19 identified through an NHS lab (Pillar 1) or from commercial swab testing (Pillar 2) back to March 2020 is available as part of the NHS Digital Progression Dashboard to upper tier local authority level and is available at the following link:

https://digital.nhs.uk/dashboards/progression


Written Question
Coronavirus: Ethnic Groups
Monday 19th October 2020

Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the number of people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds who have experienced symptoms related to covid-19 for longer than 28 days.

Answered by Nadine Dorries

Research into the long-term health symptoms and impacts of COVID-19 and the number of people likely to be experiencing them is ongoing. The National Institute for Health Research and UK Research and Innovation have invested £8.4 million in the Post-HOSPitalisation COVID-19 study (PHOSP-COVID), led by Christopher Brightling.

PHOSP-COVID aims to determine the short to long-term chronic health (and health economic) consequences of COVID-19 infection in survivors following hospitalisation, including those from black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds. The consortium includes experts that have worked extensively with optimising inclusion and recruitment of under-represented populations, such as the BAME community, and will ensure the population recruited to the study is representative of those hospitalised with COVID-19.


Written Question
Coronavirus: Ethnic Groups
Tuesday 8th September 2020

Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what advice he is giving to other Departments on ways to reduce the increased risk covid-19 poses to black, Asian, and ethnic minority communities.

Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Government has implemented specific measures, guided by medical and scientific expertise, to reduce the spread of the virus in all communities. For example, Public Health England has been working with the Government Equalities Office in order to help departments take a consistent approach to risk mitigation and guidance, including for black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) communities where relevant, and support engagement with sector representatives on key issues that arise during the pandemic.

We are concerned that COVID-19 has had a disproportionate effect on people from BAME backgrounds, which is why the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Equalities (Kemi Badenoch MP) has been tasked to lead the Government's work tackling this issue. With the support of the Race Disparity Unit, the Minister is also reviewing the effectiveness and impact of current actions being undertaken by relevant Government departments and their agencies to directly lessen disparities in infection and death rates of COVID-19.