Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 20 January 2021
The emergence of the coronavirus and its subsequent variants has resulted in decisions being made that would have been unthinkable a year ago. The idea that our liberties could be restricted, our livelihoods threatened and our children’s education disrupted is the stuff of nightmares. As a population, we have been asked to step up. Many people have had to make sacrifices that they did not choose in order to help to save the NHS and protect lives, and generally they have done so willingly.
In less than a year, several vaccines have been produced, which is nothing short of incredible. Normally, the discovery and research phase of developing a vaccine takes two to five years, and it takes up to 10 years to complete testing and achieve licensing. If the vaccines deliver successfully, they will have set new standards of expectation. Jamie Greene encapsulated that very well in his comments. Given that the Government’s strategy for dealing with the coronavirus is predicated on the vaccination of the population, that has become essential to getting us out of the devastating cycle of restrictions and lockdowns.
Having spent 25 years of my working life in the NHS, both as a nurse and as a manager, I am very familiar with the challenges of managing the annual winter beds crisis. I feel for the staff who are not only having to work under the pressure of large volumes of patients but having to work full-time in PPE, which, without a doubt, is uncomfortable and restrictive. There is also an emotional toll not only from the personal risk to staff but because they are often the only people who are available to distressed and terminal patients, as their relatives are obliged to stay away. The stress for medical and care staff comes not just from treating patients with Covid. For many, it comes from seeing their patients’ treatments and surgeries delayed in the knowledge that the backlog is growing and will take years to address, meaning that, for some people, it will come too late.
I do not believe that the chamber is the right place to make decisions about the administration of the vaccine, as we are not equipped with enough understanding and clinical knowledge to do so, and it is a shame that the motion suggests that we should be the ones to make such decisions. I support the general principle of offering the vaccine to those who are most at risk first, but I am also clear that the vaccine should not be compulsory and should be administered with informed consent. Therefore, I ask the Government to confirm that that will be the case.
Perhaps most importantly, we need to understand what the tipping point is for the removal of restrictions and a return to normality. I am interested in the Government’s response. How many people will have to be vaccinated before restrictions can be lifted? When will the Government feel confident that the risk to the NHS has been reduced and the risk to life from Covid suppressed sufficiently? The speed of delivery and getting children back to school and businesses back operating to minimise job losses, not to mention the reinstatement of routine healthcare, should be priorities for all of us.
I have concerns about the strategy that has been used to manage the crisis, and the political jibes that have been made in the chamber underpin the unhelpful approach that has been taken in an attempt to silence any view other than that of the members concerned. I believe that the damage that is wrought by lockdowns will be far worse than the direct consequences of Covid and that that will almost certainly be the biggest challenge that faces the politicians who sit in the chamber in the next session. That is in no way to belittle the awfulness of Covid, but it should focus the minds of those who are responsible for driving the strategies to consider all the evidence that is available to them on what works to tackle the crisis, as Covid might not be the last virulent virus that we ever have to face.
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