argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Health
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): We are doing everything we can to ensure flexibility in the NHS so that staff can move more easily, by electronic passes and so on, from one place to another. We are also getting many doctors back to the service. We have, too, our volunteers in the vaccine roll-out and now in helping hospitals with the current pressure. More fundamentally, we are recruiting large numbers of NHS staff, and there are now more people working in the NHS than at any time in its history—about 50,000 more, all told, this year than last year. That is a result of the investments we are making.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Health
Maria Frances Lewis Miller (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the Prime Minister for his statement today. I also thank people such as Dr Tim Cooper in my constituency who took up the Prime Minister’s challenge and enabled absolutely every eligible person in my constituency to have their boosters over the Christmas period, with walk-in clinics continuing until Sunday of this week. Can the Prime Minister take care to remember some younger residents in particular who have had covid and have had to wait for their booster through no fault of their own? Can the situation of those individuals be taken into account if any new measures are considered, or, indeed, can he can think of ways that we could perhaps ease the restrictions on their access to boosters?
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Health
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend makes a very important point; it is a fundamental point about fairness. It was raised with me last night at the press conference by one of the public questioners. It would not be fair to insist on boosters as meaning that someone has been fully vaccinated until young people in particular have had a chance to get boosted.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Health
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): No, because it is thanks to the efforts of the NHS testing operation and of testing manufacturers not just around the world, but in this country—there was stupefying ignorance displayed by those on the Labour Front Bench—that we have been able to triple our testing capacity. We are testing more per head than any other European country. Usually, they love these European statistics, but they seem a bit shy about this one. That is the reality though. Testing is a good thing. It is very important that people do it, and people should certainly get a test.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Health
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): The plan is the one that we have in place. It is to get on with plan B. As my hon. Friend knows, there will be a review of it—indeed, the plan B measures expire on 26 January. By then, we hope to have greatly increased the already extraordinarily high number of people in this country who have been not only vaccinated, but boosted The number of people who have been boosted in the UK is currently 34 million. There are a further 9 million that we still need to reach. As I said to the House before Christmas, our plan was to double the speed of the booster roll-out, which we did. Every eligible adult got a slot before new year. We need to increase the number of boosted members of the population, and, as omicron blows through—it is very much my hope and belief that it will blow through—I do believe that we will be able to get back to something much closer to normality. That does not mean that there will not be further challenges, but I think that life will return to something much, much closer to normality. It will not be necessary to keep the current restrictions in place, and business investors will have all the confidence that they need. To be frank, Mr Speaker, we are already seeing huge investments in this country because of the approach that we have taken.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Health
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): I repeat my expression of sympathy for all those who need to visit people in care homes and for the loved ones in care homes who are desperate to be visited. As I said, we have in place a system that allows for unlimited-duration visits for three nominated persons, which is an improvement on where we were—the hon. and learned Lady might remember—at earlier stages in this pandemic. We want to continue with a balanced and proportionate approach that does not allow the disease to get back into care homes in the way that it did. The faster we can get through omicron, the quicker we will be back to normal.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Health
Robert James Buckland (Conservative, Centre-right): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am sure that we on the Government Benches warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement I had the honour of joining an army of volunteers at my local vaccination hub over Christmas to help to get people jabbed—there have been thousands of people every day and it has been a huge privilege. My local hospital, the Great Western Hospital, has declared an internal critical incident. I would be extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend and the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care if I received maximum assurance that the hospital leadership will get all the support it needs to maintain essential services for the people of my constituency and beyond.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Health
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): I echo your congratulations, Mr Speaker, to my right hon. and learned Friend. The hospital he mentions will get every support throughout this difficult period and we will do everything we can to engage with him on the issues he raises. As I told the House, that support is made possible through the funding we are putting in.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Health
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): What we are doing is supporting hospitals in Greater Manchester and up and down the country with record investment and, as I said in an earlier answer, by making sure that we supplement the staff by calling doctors back to the colours and with volunteers, new therapeutic treatments and all the extra things that we are doing. But fundamentally, there is also a job for this country: to follow plan B and the guidance that we put in place and get boosted. That is the most important thing we can do.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Health
Harriett Mary Morison Baldwin (Conservative, Centre-right): I warmly welcome the boost that the Prime Minister gave to the "Get Boosted Now" programme. Over the recess, almost 1 million boosters a day were given to people and I thank everyone involved. I also welcome the leadership that he showed on the COVAX facility and in making sure that vaccinations have been spread around the world. Given the risk of variants emerging in places where vaccination rates are not as high as in the UK, is there more that we can do to boost vaccination rates around the world?
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Health
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): The UK can be proud of what we are doing—my hon. Friend knows this area well—to support vaccination around the world. Thanks to the deal we did with Oxford-AstraZeneca, 1.5 billion doses were administered to people who needed them around the world at cost—that was thanks to the deal negotiated by the UK Government. We put £478 million into COVAX and we have a pledge to deliver 100 million surplus vaccines around the world by June this year.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Health
Andrew Theakstone Percy (Conservative, Centre-right): In their critique, the Opposition Front Benchers forgot about the 50,000 hospital beds that they cut when they were in power, including closing entire wards at Goole and District Hospital—but I digress. I remind the Prime Minister of the important role that volunteers are undertaking in the NHS, particularly those in services such as the ambulance service who will be attending more and more jobs in the coming weeks and months to support our NHS. Given that we will rely on our NHS to rightly keep the economy open, will he look closely at possible future reward and recognition payments to our NHS staff for the extra efforts that they will make this winter?
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Health
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my hon. Friend very much. He makes an incredibly important point about the record of the Opposition, because the pressure on the NHS is caused by the limit to the number of beds that we have—there are only about 100,000. That is why this Government are getting on with building 40 more hospitals—[Interruption.] Yes, we are. And that is why we are recruiting 50,000 more nurses. They opposed the lot of it.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Health
David Thomas Morris (Conservative, Centre-right): The University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust has been overwhelmed recently with people effectively bed blocking because they cannot get back into the care homes. I know we are putting tents in car parks; I have seen that on the news. However, in a helpful way, I ask whether my right hon. Friend does not think it would be right to enact, in areas such as mine—more rural areas going north—the big Nightingale centres like we had in Preston.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Health
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to my hon. Friend, but what we are doing is ensuring that we support hospitals up and down the country that are facing the pressures he describes, not only with more staff but with more facilities and on-site Nightingales, as I said in my statement.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Health
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): We will continue to keep isolation timings under review. We do not want to release people back in to society or to their workplace so soon that they just infect all their colleagues; that would not be sensible. As I said in my earlier answers, we have a good chance of getting through this difficult wave and getting back to something like normality as fast as possible. It is important that omicron seems to provide some sort of immunity against delta, for instance, and that may be a positive augury for the future.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Health
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful, but I must say that throughout the pandemic the public have continually surprised on the upside with their determination to take this seriously. Rather than undermining confidence in them, a very high proportion of them continue to do the right thing and I believe always will.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Health
Mark James Harper (Conservative, Centre-right): May I press the Prime Minister on a couple of previous answers? He has come to the House today to extend plan B restrictions for a further three weeks, but he will know that the chief scientific adviser has said that covid is going to be with us forever, and we are going to have variants forever, so may I press him on his answer to our right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) about an exit strategy? We cannot respond to every new variant in the way we have to this one. We must have a plan to live as normal with this virus forever. When will he set out that plan in this House so that we all know where we stand?
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Health
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): If my right hon. Friend looks at what we are doing, he will see that the measures we have in place expire on 26 January, as he knows. Whatever the situation may be then, we will continue with the fundamental tools that we have—that is, vaccination, therapeutics and testing. But it is important that omicron already seems to provide some sort of immunity against delta. That is a point that he should feed into his capacious brain.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Health
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): It is very important that everybody should get the ambulance service that they need. That is why we are investing £55 million more and that is why there are 500 more people on the ambulance staff than there were in 2018.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Health
Michael Louis David Fabricant (Conservative, Centre-right): Is my right hon. Friend aware that the eyes of the world are literally upon us, with The New York Times and newspapers in France, Germany and Israel, among others, talking about the Prime Minister’s bold initiative in sticking to plan B and recognising that omicron is less serious than previous variants? They say that Britain was the first to recognise that, and that we were the first to start a vaccine programme in Europe and also the largest testing programme in Europe. Will my right hon. Friend still, however, maintain a watching brief on other variants, because there may be more serious variants in the future—we just do not know? Will he also take this opportunity, again, to correct what the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) said and say that we are not cancelling any cancer operations?
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Health
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): I really think that the hon. Lady should listen to what is actually going on this country today. We are investing record sums in the NHS. There are 5,000 more doctors and 10,000 more nurses now than there were last year. There are record numbers of people in the NHS. That, in my experience, is what NHS staff want to see, in addition to the extra money we have put into pay rises. That has been made possible through the £36 billion that we have voted through and that she opposed. [Interruption.] Maybe she did not, but I think the record will show that she voted against it.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Health
Caroline Elizabeth Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust declared a critical incident on 1 January, not due to the number of omicron patients but due to pressures on staffing caused by omicron cases and isolation pressures. Local MPs have been reassured that acute services are safe and open. Will my right hon. Friend join me in thanking the staff of United Lincolnshire Hospitals for their work and dedication under extraordinary circumstances, and will he give me his assurance that he will do all he can for United Lincolnshire Hospitals, and that his Government will provide it with all the support that is necessary?
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Health
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my hon. Friend for her question. I know United Lincolnshire Hospitals: I remember going there with my right hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock), the former Health Secretary—whose grandmother worked there, if I recall correctly—and I know what an incredible job its staff do. I know how difficult it has been for them, and as I said to the House and to the country, it will continue to be difficult in the course of the next few weeks, but we will get through it, and we will give the NHS all the support it needs.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Health
William David Wiggin (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend has touched on the number of people in intensive care: 90% of those have not had their booster, and 60% have not had any vaccination at all. He will know that there are people out there with very good reasons not to be vaccinated, who get tarred with the same brush as people who have been reading nonsense on the internet. Can we have better stats, so that people can see the benefits of vaccination and be encouraged to take it up? Obviously, everybody benefits if those people are not in hospital.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Health
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend makes a very powerful and important point: we should not bully or demonise those who, for medical reasons or for whatever reason, simply cannot get vaccinated. Of course that is right, but it is also very important that people understand the benefits to them and their families of getting boosted in particular. The benefits are overwhelming—they are there for everybody to see—and I am afraid that that tragic statistic about the people in ICU is also plain for all to see.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Health
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): We took every possible step to step up our supply of tests. We tripled the supplies, and deliveries went up to 900,000 a day. To listen to Labour Members, Mr Speaker, you would not believe that this was the country that was conducting more tests per head than any other in Europe. They are simply refusing to give credit where it is due. I appreciate that huge numbers of people want to be tested, but we are doing our level best to meet demand.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Health
Damian Howard Green (Conservative, Centre-right): I very much welcome my right hon. Friend’s announcements today. One of the best things we could do, both for public health and for our hard-pressed hospitals, is to make sure that the small but significant number of people who refuse vaccination altogether are persuaded of the error of their ways, so can I ask my right hon. Friend to redouble the Government’s efforts? Some people will no doubt be completely, misguidedly recalcitrant, but I believe that the vast majority are persuadable. Whether through education, advertising, or frankly anything this side of coercion, can he redouble the Government’s efforts to persuade those who are unvaccinated to take the jab?
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Health
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend is quite right, and that is why we are enlisting the help of community leaders up and down the country—anybody who speaks with authority in communities—to get that message across. That is also why the vaccine taskforce, as I recall, spent £675,000 on outreach to hard-to-reach groups. What did the Opposition say? They said that the funding could not be justified.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Health
Shailesh Lakhman Vara (Conservative, Centre-right): At the start of the pandemic, there was evidence that members of the black, Asian and minority ethnic community were more vulnerable to the covid virus. Has any analysis been carried out to determine whether omicron acts in a similar way? The Prime Minister will appreciate that that is of particular relevance given the significant number of people from the BAME community who work in the health and care sector.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Health
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend asks an extremely important question. I think the answer is that there is currently no evidence, but there is certainly evidence that the different levels of vaccine take-up, and booster take-up in particular, are affecting outcomes.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Health
Aaron Stuart Bell (Conservative, Centre-right): Mr Speaker, I hope you had a good Christmas break—a better break than the shadow Health and Social Care Secretary, who, since we last met, has taken a number of positions. On 19 December, he said that the Government need to "act now" and Labour called for actions before Boxing day. On 20 December, he said that the British public know that "additional restrictions are inevitable". On 21 December, he criticised the delay. On 27 December, he said that "people will be relieved to see no new restrictions". We all want a responsible and constructive Opposition, but does the Prime Minister agree that that is not opposition, but opportunism?
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Health
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): I have tried to be consensual across the House—[Interruption.] I have, and I have tried to build on those aspects of our handling of covid—[Interruption.] I was very consensual to the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), and, frankly, I thought he was rather rude Let me put it this way. There is much, much more that unites all parts of the UK in our handling of covid than divides us. In comparison with any other European country, we are moving virtually in lockstep. There are some baroque eccentricities in various other parts—in Wales—and I will make no comment on those, but I will repeat what I have said: we will continue to provide support throughout the UK.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Health
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): I certainly share the frustrations of everyone who has found it difficult to get a test during a time of unbelievable demand. We have taken responsibility by tripling supply and creating our own home-grown UK lateral flow testing manufacturing capability, of which the Labour Front Bench was in unbelievable ignorance when this debate began.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Health
Edward Julian Egerton Leigh (Conservative, Centre-right): Earlier this week the Lincolnshire hospitals declared a critical incident, and people in Lincolnshire no doubt thought that they were being overrun with covid. However, NHS officials told the Lincolnshire MPs yesterday that of all the intensive care beds in Lincolnshire, only two were taken by people because of or with covid, and although there were large numbers of staff absences, a quarter could be accounted for by staff being absent because they were isolating. The suspicion is that the NHS is being brought to its knees not by covid, but by the rules that require people to isolate for so long. What is the road map for shortening the period of isolation?
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Health
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): What we are doing is supporting the NHS, supporting staff and making sure that we have as much capacity as possible, and absenteeism, although high, is not as high as it has been at some other points during the pandemic, although that is no cause for complacency. What we will do is keep the period of isolation under constant review, and if we think we can bring it down without increasing infection, of course we will do so.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-05
Topic: Health
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): What we are doing is investing hundreds of millions to make sure that we have a dynamic vaccine industry. Clearly the Government need to work hand in glove with the private sector, as we have done. No matter how deep the abhorrence of the private sector on the Opposition Benches, it was private-sector private capital that produced the vaccine success.