NHS: Winter Preparedness Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Vikki Slade
Main Page: Vikki Slade (Liberal Democrat - Mid Dorset and North Poole)Department Debates - View all Vikki Slade's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
NHS: Winter Preparedness
Vikki Slade Excerpts(1 day, 20 hours ago)
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Wes Streeting
Through my hon. Friend I thank staff at Milton Keynes hospital for all their hard work—I have had the privilege of visiting recently—and I thank all NHS staff for what they are doing throughout this week and throughout a very challenging winter. We know that staff are working under pressure and that their pay, terms and conditions need to improve. Most importantly, we know that conditions for patients need to improve, and we are far better able to do that if we work together, and if the BMA is more reasonable not just about the scale of the asks, but about the pace with which it is demanding change, recognising our responsibility to all staff, not just doctors, and crucially to patients.
Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
More than 34,000 residents of Dorset are over the age of 80 and therefore excluded from the RSV vaccine. They have been told that it is too dangerous for them to take, but they are now extremely worried because cases are going up. Will the Secretary of State sit back round with the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation and review the decision to exclude them, so that residents such as Joan in Wimborne, who has to care for her even older and more disabled husband, can get reassurance this winter that she can protect herself and him?
Wes Streeting
I am not a clinician or a scientist, but the JCVI is full of them and we follow its expert advice. It will, in the normal way, review how this winter has gone and look ahead to future pressures, but it is important that we are guided by the evidence, whatever the political pressure.