I have today received this update from the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care:

Dear John

I am writing to update you on the fantastic efforts of your local Covid vaccination teams. I am delighted to inform you that Wokingham West PCN is one of the highest performing Covid vaccination areas in the country, having now covered over 85% of those over 80.

Britain is leading the global fightback against the virus, being the first country in the world to approve a clinically-trialled vaccine and now deploying the vaccine on the ground faster than almost any other country in the world. And this is down to the tireless efforts of all those involved – especially those on the ground in our communities, from nurses, to GPs, to pharmacies, to volunteers, and so many more.

It’s incredible to see this community spirit, as people pull together to lead us collectively out of the pandemic. I hope you will join me in thanking and congratulating all those involved in your area for the part they are playing in this national effort.

Yours ever,
MATT HANCOCK

Sir John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): I congratulate my Right Honourable Friend on the what she has been doing. Will she strengthen the law against people trafficking which remains a worrying danger and can she ensure the necessary travel controls do not stop essential work travel?

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Priti Patel): My Right Honourable Friend is absolutely right. First of all, in terms of people trafficking, he has been assiduous on this. He has heard me a number of times in terms of the measures that we are bringing forward in terms of legislation and plans around tackling people trafficking and the smugglers. We have some good reports on that in terms of the some of the criminal penalties and sanctions that have been levelled against individuals.

Secondly, he is absolutely right in terms of fines we are putting in place and the exemptions that are required around key areas such as goods in particular coming into the country.

The Department of Health and Social Care has provided the following answer to your written parliamentary question (133606):

Question:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the progress that has been made in the testing of (a) anti-viral treatments, (b) immune modulators and (c) other existing medicines to help provide improved treatments for covid-19. (133606)
Tabled on: 06 January 2021

Answer:
Jo Churchill:
The Department is carefully considering all available evidence from clinical trials in the United Kingdom and overseas around the potential of different drugs across a variety of different modes of action for use in treating COVID-19.

On 7 January 2021, the REMAP-CAP clinical trial published results showing that two immunomodulators, tocilizumab and sarilumab, reduced the relative risk of death by 24% for critically ill patients and time spent in intensive care by up to 10 days.

The UK national priority platform clinical trials – RECOVERY, REMAP-CAP and PRINCIPLE – can test both licensed and unlicensed drugs. These are adaptive trials, meaning that results are monitored on an ongoing basis and treatments which are clearly ineffective will be discontinued. Trials may also add new potential treatments if other evidence suggests promise.

I am pleased the UK held a referendum in Scotland to see if people there wanted to leave the UK, after years of pressure from the SNP to break up the Union. It was a great contrast with the tactics used by the Spanish government to prevent such a vote in Catalonia over the future of the Spanish union. I agreed with the SNP in the Commons before the vote, when they said it would be a once in a generation event. These votes are of course divisive, as each side needs to heighten the differences to bid votes its way. They are necessary divisions to reveal  the views of the public and to provide instructions to the politicians.  They are not a good idea to keep repeating. They are also asymmetric, as the wish to have votes to ask if people want to be independent would presumably stop were a vote ever to be won for independence.  Seeking to re enter a Union you have left is altogether more problematic and would clearly require the consent of the Union as well as of the country which had left.

Gordon Brown’s intervention in the debate was predictable and unhelpful. It was his recommended policy of offering devolution that failed to stem the tide of Scottish nationalism, though he thought it would. He now wants to try it again. He as always  wishes to split up England into artificial regions, when England wishes to be afforded the same level of devolution and self government as Scotland enjoys. He has not taken on board the rejection of elected regional assemblies in England as an unwanted and expensive burden on the taxpayer.  A few of my  critics do  not like my wish to save public money by asking Westminster MPs elected for English seats to handle the devolved business for England and want an English Parliament with more politicians.

The UK government says it does not intend to legislate for another referendum as it is too soon to re open this issue. The government currently needs to show how the Union works well for all parts of the UK. It needs to revisit its Single market legislation to make sure we have full powers over GB to Northern Ireland trade which matters to Scottish, Welsh and English businesses selling into Northern Ireland. The government could set out clarifying legislation to say that any load certified as a load for a final consumer in Northern Ireland should not suffer any further or additional checks to those that applied prior to Brexit. The UK would of course police against smuggling product via Northern Ireland to the Republic without the EU checks they want and co-operate with the Irish authorities as they did when we were both in the EU where  smugglers tried to evade Excise and Vat differences between the jurisdictions..

A fortnight is a long time in a vaccination campaign…

Wokingham Town Centre’s Covid-19 vaccination programme is being delivered by the four practices that comprise East Wokingham Primary Care Network, namely: Woosehill Medical Centre, New Wokingham Road Surgery, Burma Hills Surgery and Wokingham Medical Centre. The doctors and staff of these practices have vaccinated around 2600 patients at the Bradbury Centre, Wokingham during the course of the last fortnight. In addition, we’ve vaccinated virtually all residents and staff in our local older adult care homes, meaning that a total of nearly 3000 vaccinations have been performed in the opening two weeks of our vaccination programme. Furthermore, we expect to vaccinate another 2000 residents over the next few days as we receive more vaccine supply.

The importance of these numbers cannot be overstated as they represent almost all of the over 80-year olds and almost all of the older adult care home residents in East Wokingham Primary Care Network. NHS England has rightly prioritised this group of citizens as they have substantially higher complication and death rates from Covid-19 and it has been a real pleasure to catch up with ‘old friends’ on vaccination days.

From a practical and logistical perspective, we are particularly pleased that the vaccination effort has been achieved without any queues at the Bradbury Centre and while maintaining strict social distancing and infection control measures. We have been ably assisted by the Wokingham Volunteer Centre and the Wokingham Lions who have provided a seemingly limitless supply of volunteers who have braved the cold and rain in order to ensure that our most vulnerable citizens are vaccinated safely and efficiently.

We’ve been made aware of various misunderstandings that are being perpetuated on local social media and it may help residents’ anxieties if some of these are clarified:

1. Some Primary Care Networks – and therefore some practices – started vaccinated before others. The order in which practices started vaccinating was not down to the practices themselves but largely as a result of guidance from NHS England. It’s hopefully fairly obvious that vaccinating everyone nationally – simultaneously – might have problematic consequences were there to be widespread side effects.

2. The pace of vaccinating is dictated by vaccine supply and is not in the gift of practices. The vaccine supply is currently a little erratic and – we understand – is being actively managed by NHS England to ensure all regions have consistent supply. Please be assured that we are vaccinating as fast as we are receiving vaccine deliveries. If we only receive 400 doses, we can only vaccinate 400 people.

3. Practices are delivering vaccines in age cohorts that are determined by NHS England. These cohorts reflect the need to vaccinate the most at-risk citizens first. The practices will contact everyone in cohort order, so please, please, please do not petition your practice to state that you have a special case – all you do is prevent our staff from doing their jobs.

4. Your practice is delivering the vaccination programme while simultaneously trying to maintain some degree of normal service – and often while having staff self-isolating. Vaccinating tens of thousands of our patients means that staff will be diverted from normal activities inevitably. Practices don’t have access to a multitude of spare doctors and staff that can be parachuted in to assist at short notice – and therefore a reduction in non-clinical and clinical staff at your practice on vaccination days is inevitable. Despite our best efforts this may mean that it takes a little longer to answer the phone and it may mean that there is a delay in securing your desired appointment. So, please be patient with us as we try to deliver one of the most ambitious global vaccination programmes ever.

Finally, we have been humbled by the gratitude that many of you have shown. We have received countless messages of thanks and many of you have commented on how well-organised the Bradbury Centre operation has been. We are proud to be involved in the Covid-19 vaccination programme and the appreciation of our community means a great deal to us – thank you.

Dr Vipan Bhardwaj
Clinical Director, East Wokingham Primary Care Network