Weekly Update: People often ask me how much difference raising issues in Parliament actually makes, and this week there was a useful example of how important speaking up in the Chamber can be! At PMQ's last week, I asked the Prime Minister if there was now enough data for the 15-minute wait to be safely reduced or dropped, to help supercharge the booster rollout ahead of Christmas. In addition to vaccination centres, vaccines are also delivered to housebound patients at home, and in smaller spaces like pharmacies, so the wait can significantly slow down capacity in these settings.
Having raised this in the Chamber, and with the Government privately throughout the Autumn, I was pleased to see that the Chief Medical Officers have concluded that it is indeed safe to suspend this wait, to get as many people as possible boosted before Christmas, with the evidence having shown that the wait prevented over 500,000 people from receiving the vaccine initially, and that retaining the wait was more of a risk overall than dropping it.
Here's what else I've been up to this week for Hinckley and Bosworth:
- Lobbied the Education Secretary for extra funding for schools locally to cope with COVID costs, and emphasised my view that schools should not be closed again as a result of the pandemic
- Had the pleasure of opening the new Community Hub at St Andrew's and cutting the cake - a huge congratulations to them, what a fantastic facility to have locally!
- Discussed vaccine hesitancy and how the Government decides which measures to implement with CMO Chris Whitty, watch here: https://bit.ly/3saUrmZ
- Attended a briefing from the Health Secretary to be updated on Omicron and the picture nationally
- Spoke during the debate on Plan B and new measures in response to the Omicron variant – you can see my speech here: https://bit.ly/3FaMC4w
- Attended a briefing from Chris Whitty on the latest pandemic data
- Spoke to campaigners Elle and Debbie-Louise about my #RecogniseBodyImage campaign, sign the petition here: https://bit.ly/31Wl7gT
- Held my weekly constituency surgery – including green tech, special needs education and childcare issues, and helped to support local people on a wide range of casework
As ever, if you are experiencing an issue or problem I may be able to help with, do feel free to email me at luke.evans.mp@parliament.uk, and I'd be more than happy to get back to you.
