Lord Greaves
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Covid 19: Winter Plan
Lord Greaves Excerpts(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
Regardless of faith, Christmas is a time when family and friends come together. It has been an incredibly difficult year for everyone, and time with loved ones is very important. We have been very clear about the rules and we have also been clear that it is for people and families to make judgments about how comfortable they feel in terms of the importance of seeing loved ones with regard to their vulnerability. However, I personally would say no to stopping people seeing family for Christmas. I would prefer to see my family, but obviously I will have to make judgments with them about how comfortable we feel, and I think that that is quite important.
Lord Greaves (LD) [V]
My Lords, I am reminded of the line from the poem,
“If winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”
It seems that this is the Government’s last chance to get things right on a lot more testing and distribution of the vaccines. The Royal Blackburn Hospital reports that despite the fact that the number of infections in east Lancashire has started to go down at last, it has twice as many Covid cases in hospital as it had in the spring. That is putting huge pressure on all its services.
I asked about the Nightingale hospitals in a recent Question and was told that each Nightingale team has been developing a clinical model that can be scaled up as and when additional capacity is required. Why are we not using the Nightingale facilities in places like Manchester and Harrogate to relieve the pressure on hospitals like Blackburn?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
The NHS Medical Director has made it clear that the NHS has carefully planned to make sure that we can deal with additional demand using, as the noble Lord has rightly said, the mobilisation of the Nightingale hospitals and through partnerships with the independent sector. They will ensure that this is rolled out as and when it is needed. I am sure that they will be cognisant of the situation in Blackburn and will be monitoring it very carefully.