Covid-19 Update Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateTim Loughton
Main Page: Tim Loughton (Conservative - East Worthing and Shoreham)Department Debates - View all Tim Loughton's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(4 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberOne of the glimmers of light in these troubling times are the amazing community volunteer projects that have sprung up in all our constituencies. The Secretary of State will be pleased to learn that on Sunday, we set up a “shopital” outside Worthing hospital, and I spent several hours selling rice, spuds and, crucially, loo paper to more than 100 ambulancemen, nurses and doctors. Should not that sort of arrangement be happening anyway with the supermarkets and with the new scheme delivering food packets, to make sure that NHS workers for whom going shopping at eight o’clock in the morning during the “golden hour” is not appropriate can get on with their job much more easily?
I did not know that my hon. Friend was engaged in that sort of activity on a Sunday morning, but I am delighted that he was. Making sure that we get hot meals to NHS staff who are working often many more shifts than gives them time to make a good meal is incredibly important. It is something that we are working hard on, but I am really glad when it happens spontaneously, as well as when we try to sort it from the Department.