argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Coronavirus — House of Commons, 2020-03-11
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady asked some important questions about how Parliament will function. Matters of how we work are of course for Parliament—for the Leader of the House, the Speaker and the Commission, all guided by the science. They are in constant contact with Public Health England to get the very best advice. As for when we are voting, this disease passes in very, very large part from people who have symptoms, and we may not have symptoms. What really matters is making sure that as soon as people have symptoms potentially of coronavirus, they get in contact with 111 or Public Health England The hon. Lady asked for more testing. We are absolutely ramping up the testing capabilities. We have been commended on the approach we are taking by international bodies; she mentioned the WHO. She asked about children. One of the good pieces of news about the virus is that it does appear to have a much, much less significant impact on children. On the GMC and indemnity, absolutely —both those issues will be addressed in the Bill, and we are working very closely with the GMC The hon. Lady asked about collaboration and work with the European Union. We still remain within the European Union data transfer capabilities. Most of this data is being transferred—frankly, it is being published. We are being as transparent as possible. This week, we brought out a new website in order to be as transparent as possible about all the cases in the UK. Most European nations are taking exactly that approach.
Coronavirus — House of Commons, 2020-03-11
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): Gosh, that is a blast from the past—that phrase was invented almost exactly 10 years ago. My hon. Friend is quite right, though. This is a national effort, and community shops can play a huge role in helping people to get the groceries and other supplies that they need. There has been much discussion of supermarkets. I am glad to say that the vast majority of supermarkets are playing an absolutely incredible part in this national effort; we are working very closely with them and have been for some time. Our community shops will be really embedded in their communities; they often know which people are going to need the most support, and have those personal relationships. As long as they are following the public health advice to ensure that the people they are helping are also kept healthy, then they have an important role to play in our national effort.
Coronavirus — House of Commons, 2020-03-11
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): It is for Public Health England to make advice available and to give guidance. We will always follow the scientific advice on what makes the biggest impact. It is interesting, listening to the scientists, that sometimes the things that we, as lay people, may feel intuitively will have the biggest impact do not in fact have the biggest impact. The measures that we are taking and proposing to take include, for instance, looking at asking people who have symptoms, however mild, to stay at home. We are aiming to do the things that have the biggest impact. There are some things that feel right but do not have an impact at all. That is why it is so important to follow the science and what Public Health England says.
Coronavirus — House of Commons, 2020-03-11
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): We are looking to reduce bureaucratic burdens on primary care and GPs—we were looking at it anyway, but we have accelerated that work because of this outbreak. We have moved to a principle of "digital first" in primary care and with out-patients: unless there are clinical or practical reasons, all consultations should be done by telemedicine.
Coronavirus — House of Commons, 2020-03-11
Topic: Health
Pauline Elizabeth Latham (Conservative, Centre-right): I would like to associate myself with the Secretary of State’s remarks. I wish my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire the very best and hope that her family recover as quickly as possible if they succumb to the virus My constituents have developed a test for the virus. They are selling it all round the world, but we are not using it in this country. It costs £5. It is working, and it gives a result within 10 minutes—it is a quick, cheap way to do it. May I urge the Secretary of State to ask the Department to investigate that and ensure that we are using the most effective test possible?
Coronavirus — House of Commons, 2020-03-11
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes, absolutely. My hon. Friend has brought that to my attention before. We have done research into it, and we are working with over two dozen commercial companies that have tests of this kind. In fact, I had a meeting on this today.
Coronavirus — House of Commons, 2020-03-11
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): As the hon. Lady knows, guidance is coming out this week. She is right about the importance of protective equipment, and of course, we are taking that into account. The Chancellor set out that more money will be available in social care if it is needed—and I expect that it will be—and announced a total of up to £5 billion for the NHS and social care, while saying that his door is open should more be needed. These are all very important considerations, and the guidance will be out shortly.
Coronavirus — House of Commons, 2020-03-11
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): That is a very important consideration. As I said, the number of labs doing testing has already gone from one to 12, and we are working with more than two dozen companies on further testing capability. We are rolling out a big expansion of testing. The critical thing is to ensure that it is not just about the testing. Getting the whole pathway right—from somebody feeling sick to calling 111, being tested and then getting the test result back—as the number of tests goes up is the critical thing we have to do.
Coronavirus — House of Commons, 2020-03-11
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): There are different types of social distancing. There is what is essentially case isolation, which is where somebody has symptoms and we are asking them to self-isolate. At the moment, if somebody has moderate or heavy symptoms, they should self-isolate, and we have talked about going, at the right time, to self-isolation—staying at home—for people with mild symptoms. There is also, of course, the need to ensure that older people and vulnerable people, for whom this virus has a bigger impact, can get the right advice on self-isolating, and that is something we are working on Here the timing really is critical, because the evidence of past epidemics and past crises of this nature shows that people do tire of these sorts of social distancing measures, so if we start them too early, they lose their effect and actually it is worse. The social science and the behavioural science are a very important part of the scientific advice that we rely on.
Coronavirus — House of Commons, 2020-03-11
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): I asked the chief medical officer this precise question this morning, so I can report to the right hon. Member what the chief medical officer says is the answer to this question. The degree of resistance is deemed to be very high, especially in the first year or more afterwards, for similar coronaviruses, and is therefore likely to be very high for this one. It is good news that it is highly likely that once people have got it and recovered, they are going to be okay. That is obviously good news for people who have had it, including our hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire.
Coronavirus — House of Commons, 2020-03-11
Topic: Defense
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): This is supposed to be an easy question, but actually my right hon. Friend is completely wrong. I would rather have the advice. I would rather go through 100 ideas, 99 of which we have already looked into, to find the one that we had not thought of than not be bombarded, so I ask him to send them on.
Coronavirus — House of Commons, 2020-03-11
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): I am afraid that is not how we are thinking about it, as that implies a perfect world in which things are available and not in demand around the world. Our approach to ventilators, and to staffing-up—obviously, we need trained staff to operate ventilators, or else they are dangerous—is to get our hands on as many as possible, and to train up as many people as possible. We think that we will need as many ventilators as we can get our hands on. There is no calculus of demand and availability; we are trying to buy as many as we can get hold of.
Coronavirus — House of Commons, 2020-03-11
Topic: Health
Thomas Georg John Tugendhat (Conservative, Centre-right): I pay tribute to the way that the Minister and his team, Public Health England, and the whole NHS are dealing with what is frankly an unprecedented situation. I am hugely grateful to them all. Is the Secretary of State working with our right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary on keeping our diplomats and envoys safe abroad, and giving them the advice they require? What is he doing to work with the World Health Organisation to ensure that we limit spread as much as we possibly can around the world, so that we are not infected again afterwards?
Coronavirus — House of Commons, 2020-03-11
Topic: Health
Andrew William Murrison (Conservative, Centre-right): May I commend my right hon. Friend for the sure-footed way he has approached this, and the hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) for his balanced and measured response? The Health Secretary knows well that the problem with intensive treatment units and intensivism is not so much the kit, as the people. What is he doing to ensure that clinicians within the service who are in non-acute specialties are given the skills they need to deal with what may be coming?
Coronavirus — House of Commons, 2020-03-11
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): As my right hon. Friend knows, we are inviting and encouraging recent retirees and health care leavers back in, and we will provide for some of that in the Bill. We are also ensuring that as we make what is effectively a big change to the NHS case mix, and do fewer elective operations and focus more on respiratory diseases and coronavirus, there will be a retraining exercise for people to go on.
Coronavirus — House of Commons, 2020-03-11
Topic: Health
Natalie Cecilia Elphicke (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Ms Dorries) has been playing a pivotal role in supporting our east Kent hospitals, and I would like to add my good wishes to her, her family and her staff Areas like mine in Dover and Deal are on the border with another country. With a global pandemic now announced, will my right hon. Friend update the House on any additional steps being taken internationally to manage transmission risk between countries, such as between our country and France?
Coronavirus — House of Commons, 2020-03-11
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes, we are increasing the support available at all ports, including airports and seaports such as Dover, and making sure that better information is available, including in multiple languages, to those who are arriving. Specifically and importantly, no matter who is here, we want to make sure that they know that if they are ill they should call 111, because this virus travels from human to human, not from people of one nationality to another. It does not see that distinction.
Coronavirus — House of Commons, 2020-03-11
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): As I said in my statement, I am delighted that Parliament is staying open. There are, of course, considerations around procedures and how the House operates. It is rightly a matter for the Leader, Mr Speaker, the House of Commons Commission and every single Member to express their view, and the hon. Lady rightly puts her view firmly on the record. As long as the public health advice is taken into account, and it is based on that advice, then, as far as I am concerned, I am sure the decisions will be got right, led by you, Mr Speaker The one point I will respond to is that calling for testing for everyone is not going to help, because the test is not reliable for people who are not symptomatic. That is why testing at the airport, for instance, which several people have called for, is not effective. Some of the countries that started it, stopped it. Temperature testing leads to a load of false positives, because you might be ill with something else, and that complicates the system—or it leads to lots of false negatives, with the test returning a negative even though somebody is ill, because they do not yet have enough virus in their system to be symptomatic and for the test to pick it up. Testing people who do not have symptoms is not reliable and is counterproductive, so we will not be doing it.
Coronavirus — House of Commons, 2020-03-11
Topic: Health
Tobias Martin Ellwood (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend rightly talks about chronology: feeling ill, dialling 111 and then going to take the test itself. However, may I echo the concerns about the self-test capability? He points out the difficulties with accuracy. I am concerned that about one fifth of the UK workforce might be off ill, many of whom may not develop the full symptoms. Will he look at our ability to advance a capability to self-test in the near future? That would eliminate many of the workforce going off unnecessarily.
Coronavirus — House of Commons, 2020-03-11
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): Absolutely—in fact, there was a very big conference in London today on precisely this issue. We are working with dozens of companies on it. We will work with anybody and scour the world for a solution, as my right hon. Friend describes. I just add one thing: he talked about how I had described what people should do if they feel ill—they should call 111—but also, going to the 111 website is really, really important, because that takes pressure off the call centres and many people can get the answers they need without talking to someone.
Coronavirus — House of Commons, 2020-03-11
Topic: Health
Robert John Blackman (Conservative, Centre-right): The vast majority of people who contract the disease will be able to self- isolate and recover at home. A small number of cases will need hospitalisation, and as the number of people who are infected increases, so could serious cases. Would my right hon. Friend say that people who have to be hospitalised will have to be isolated, and what plans are there then to increase the number of beds that will be available in hospitals on isolation units?
Coronavirus — House of Commons, 2020-03-11
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): We are increasing the number of beds, and, by moving away from some of the elective activity, making more beds available. However, I want to pick my hon. Friend up on one thing: as and when this virus becomes widespread, isolation becomes less important than ventilation. The normal flu procedures are that keeping several people who all have the same flu in one room—in one ward—is absolutely fine, because they cannot infect one another because they all have the same disease. Isolation is vital in the contain phase. It is still important in delay, but as we get through to mitigating the impact, the need for isolation facilities is less important.
Coronavirus — House of Commons, 2020-03-11
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes, we will publish more on this in very short order. Some of the changes in this area will be in the Bill, but some will be in secondary legislation, so that they can go at a faster pace, potentially, than the Bill. The ESA (C), as it is known, comes in only after seven days and bringing that down is an important part of the reassurance that the hon. Member seeks.
Coronavirus — House of Commons, 2020-03-11
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): Absolutely. This is right at the top of the agenda; tackling fake news is incredibly important. The major social media platforms and search engines have already risen to this task and I pay tribute to them—in the past, I have been known not to pay tribute to them, and sometimes quite the reverse. They have absolutely risen to this task and we will keep on it, but, of course, the information that we provide to the public will have to evolve both as we learn more about the disease and as we move through the plan. For the moment, the absolute core message is that people should wash their hands.
Coronavirus — House of Commons, 2020-03-11
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): We are not there yet, but we are moving towards it. That is what the chief medical officer set out in the press conference on Monday, in part for exactly the reasons the hon. Member sets out.
Coronavirus — House of Commons, 2020-03-11
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes, absolutely; this is really important. We have some supplies of these sorts of things, in the supply chains and, in some cases, within the shops themselves, and we are working with the shops to ensure availability of things that can be critical to people’s care. We are working on that with DEFRA, the NHS and within the Department, particularly in relation to pharmacies, to make sure we get the right kit to the people who need it.
Coronavirus — House of Commons, 2020-03-11
Topic: Health
Philip Thomas Hollobone (Conservative, Centre-right): I commend the Health Secretary on doing a difficult job in trying circumstances extremely well. Likewise, I commend all the staff at Kettering General Hospital, who are working their socks off to ensure that the hospital is fully prepared. The only easily understandable benchmark our constituents have to judge the scale of this thing is seasonal flu, so can he tell the House, on average each year, how many people catch seasonal flu and how many people die from it?
Coronavirus — House of Commons, 2020-03-11
Topic: Health
Gary William Sambrook (Conservative, Centre-right): On Sunday, Birmingham will host one of the largest St Patrick’s Day parades in the world. Can the Health Secretary assure me and the people of Birmingham that he will do everything he can to issue the right guidance as quickly and effectively as possible so that people can make sensible decisions when it comes to their use of public transport and attending mass gatherings?
Coronavirus — House of Commons, 2020-03-11
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes, absolutely. I can assure my hon. Friend of that. For now, the guidance is to wash your hands and, if you sneeze or cough, to catch it in a tissue and throw the tissue away.
Coronavirus — House of Commons, 2020-03-11
Topic: Health
Michael Jon Wood (Conservative, Centre-right): I pay tribute to the amazing work of NHS staff, who are working to support patients who have contracted covid-19, and to prevent others from catching it. What can be done to minimise the risk to those amazing NHS workers?
Coronavirus — House of Commons, 2020-03-11
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): This is a really important part of our work. We are rolling out personal protective equipment to all primary care settings and GPs by the end of this week—we are on track to do that—and making sure that everybody in community settings in the NHS gets support. This will be a tough time for people who work in the NHS. The demands on them will be significant. Nurses, doctors and all the staff in the NHS do an extraordinary job all the time, but they will be called to be the frontline of our response in a way that many have not seen before. I thank them in advance—I think the whole House would want to do so—for the service that they will give.
Coronavirus — House of Commons, 2020-03-11
Topic: Defense
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): Absolutely. We are looking daily at how every country in the world is responding, to try to find the very best response. That is part of the science. The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, the body that meets to bring that science together, is constantly reviewing that, simply because we want the very best response possible, and that is what we base judgments on.
Coronavirus — House of Commons, 2020-03-11
Topic: Health
Elliot Colburn (Conservative, Centre-right): I welcome the measures taken in the Budget to fight this virus, and I pay tribute to the work of the Secretary of State and his team to tackle it; he is doing a fantastic job, and it is not going unnoticed. Sadly, a local resident who had coronavirus passed away at St Helier Hospital in my constituency on Monday. I am sure that my right hon. Friend will want to join me in giving our condolences to the friends and family. He will understand that a certain level of fear has arisen in my community as a result of that death. I hope that he will join me in urging calm among the local population, and assuring people that this is not time to panic-buy or listen to social media rumours; instead, they should take the advice of the chief medical officer and call NHS 111 if they need to.
Coronavirus — House of Commons, 2020-03-11
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): Absolutely. I want to pass on my condolences to the family and loved ones of all those who have died, including my hon. Friend’s constituent. I know that the hospital, with which he works closely, is absolutely safe, and did exactly the right thing in this case. I reassure his constituents, and everybody else’s, that the best thing to do is follow the advice from the chief medical officer, who is doing a remarkable job, and either call 111 or go on NHS 111 online if they have a query.
Coronavirus — House of Commons, 2020-03-11
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): There will of course be a big voluntary effort should there be staff shortfalls right across public service. People who volunteer need to be asked to do tasks that fit their skillset. If people have medical qualifications and volunteer, that is fantastic—they can go and do that and potentially do clinical work, if that is right. Some volunteers will not have that sort of skillset, but there are still things that they can do, especially to make sure that people can get what they need if they are asked to self-isolate and not leave their homes. It is a matter of finding the right match for the skillset of the people who are going to help. In a scenario in which 20% of the public are off sick, volunteers will be able to help to alleviate some of the inevitable pressure that that brings.
Coronavirus — House of Commons, 2020-03-11
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): This is a really important point that I met the NHS to discuss specifically today. It is critical that we ensure that discharges are as fast as possible. That is important in normal times, but when large proportions of those in hospital could, with the right support, leave hospital and be in a setting that works for them in social care, we have to make sure that that happens. The extra funding will help with that, but it is not all about funding; a lot of it is about co-ordination, and people are working at their level best to try to make that happen.