Covid-19 Vaccine Roll-out Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateSimon Clarke
Main Page: Simon Clarke (Conservative - Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland)Department Debates - View all Simon Clarke's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(4 years, 2 months ago)
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We have a programme under way to ensure that those without an NHS number can get vaccinated; the NHS number is the basis of the calling system to invite people to be vaccinated, but of course not everybody has an NHS number, and we must ensure that those without one get called forward too.
I pay tribute to everyone involved in administering the vaccine from The James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough today. Looking ahead to the next stage of the roll-out, I have been contacted by a GP surgery in Berwick Hills in my constituency that is concerned about the resource implications of delivering the vaccine, since it is severely under strength and serves one of the most deprived communities in England. Will my right hon. Friend agree to look at their case and discuss what extra support might be made available to surgeries that find themselves in that position?
The way we have organised the primary care roll-out is through networks of GP practices—primary care networks, as they are called—so that if one GP practice is under particular pressure, for instance because it may be carrying vacancies, the effort can be put together over a wider network of GP practices. The funding support for GPs to deliver this vaccine, as with the flu vaccine, is negotiated and agreed with the British Medical Association and is part of the operational roll-out of the vaccine in my hon. Friend’s constituency and elsewhere across the country.