Coronavirus Act 2020 (Review of Temporary Provisions) (No. 3) — House of Commons, 2021-10-19
Topic: Health
Christopher James Green (Conservative, Centre-right): We are in a profoundly different place from where we were 19 months ago when we entered the pandemic and went through a series of lockdowns. The medicines that doctors use and prescribe and the procedures that are in place are all profoundly improved. The vaccination programme has been a revelation thanks to the quality, the range and the roll-out of the vaccines. We must recognise that, today, we are in a profoundly different situation from where we were right at the beginning. We just have to look at the third wave that we are going through at the moment and at the connection between infections, hospitalisations and deaths. Those rates are fundamentally different from those in the first and second waves, so we should be taking a profoundly different approach to dealing with this virus All variants of concern are defeated by our vaccines at the moment, and we have every expectation that that will continue to be the case into the future. By maintaining the Coronavirus Act 2020, but with perhaps a limited number of provisions, we maintain the fundamental approach to dealing with this virus. Society as a whole and the civil service more narrowly are still looking at this challenge in the same way, and there is not, in that sense, a change of mindset We are approaching what will be a tough winter. No matter what happens, we will have a very difficult winter. That may be due to the coronavirus itself or to influenza, but it will also be due to the very significant build-up in waiting lists and in conditions that should have been investigated 18 months ago. We know that these cases are building up and that it will create a huge amount of pressure on the national health service I want to focus today on the care sector. Some 18 or 19 months ago, we would have had cross-party consensus on the fact that the care sector needed fundamental reform. That is far more true today than it was back then. It is clear that the care sector needs far more resources today than it needed then. There is a shortfall of about 100,000 carers. With the compulsory vaccination approach that has been taken in the care sector, the Government are expecting another 40,000 carers to leave. That will create huge problems not only for the carers, but for the residents themselves In my constituency, the care sector is already under tremendous pressure. Some people are leaving because of the pressure that they are under, and some because they choose not to be vaccinated. Some of them are finding employment in the national health service. They are leaving the care sector and going into the national health service to provide care there, but at some point we may be imposing vaccinations in the national health service as well. We do not know how many will leave the NHS at that stage, but if vaccinations in the NHS stand at about 90%, we could be looking at a loss of more than 100,000 people We have concerns about people being transferred out of care in the national health service and into the care sector. We know that the situation is going to get substantially worse as we go through the winter and more carers leave the care sector, but we do not yet know when the same approach will be imposed on the national health service. I therefore ask the Minister: what is the Department’s thinking at the moment? When will we impose compulsory vaccination on the NHS, just as has been imposed on the care sector, and what impact will that have We need a fundamental reset in our approach to dealing with the coronavirus. The circumstances are fundamentally different now, because of medical advances and so many other things. We have the opportunity to reverse the decision on the care sector. We want to keep carers caring where they want to be caring. We ought not to be imposing this decision now, because in a couple of weeks it is going to be too late. I am concerned about plan B and the possibility of ID cards or covid passes—