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The basic hygiene advice to people is exactly the same today as it was some months ago, and it is worth reiterating. To help to limit the spread, people should sneeze into a tissue. They should dispose of it properly and wash their hands. To reduce the chances of catching the virus, people should wash their hands regularly. If they have flu-like symptoms, they should stay at home, check their symptoms on www.nhs.uk, or through the swine flu information line and then ring their doctor if necessary.
Soap and water is good enough, we believe. A leaflet has gone out to every household and information is available on the website. In areas where there has been a particular concentration of cases, extra and considerable efforts have been made in terms of communications. To answer the hon. Gentleman, hand gels are useful where it is not possible to get to a place to use soap and water but over and above that we regard that as a matter for individuals and not something that we are promoting.
I turn to the issue of NHS preparedness. Our health service has been preparing for a pandemic for many years, and the World Health Organisation has said that this country's preparations are among the best in the world. I summarise by saying that we prepare for the worst and we hope for the best. Our early efforts to contain swine flu by isolating cases, offering Tamiflu as a preventive method and shutting schools where necessary gave us a precious window of time to learn more about the virus, about which little was known, and to fine tune our preparations.
We stockpiled antivirals, so that we have enough to treat half the population, and will be increasing that to cover 80 per cent. in due course. We ordered more than 15 million additional courses of antibiotics to treat complications and they will be delivered over the coming months, as will the 226 million extra face masks and 34 million extra respirators that we have ordered to protect health and social care staff. We took major strides towards developing a vaccine, about which I will seek to give some reassurance.
The House will already know that the Department of Health has signed contracts with manufacturers to supply enough vaccine for the whole population. According to their delivery schedules, we should begin receiving supplies from August, with enough becoming available for at least 30 million people by the end of the year. Clearly we want the vaccine to be available as soon as possible but we cannot compromise on safety. I assure the House that we will take all necessary steps to ensure that the vaccine is appropriately tested.
It is interesting to note that, in preparing for a pandemic, appropriate trials to assess safety and the immune responses have been carried out on vaccines very similar to the swine flu vaccine. Those vaccines have been shown to have a good safety profile. Over 40,000 doses of the said vaccines, on which the swine flu vaccines are based, have been given without any safety concerns. There is no suggestion that the UK would use a vaccine without careful consideration of safety issues. We have one of the most successful immunisation programmes in the world and we intend to keep it that way. We are now planning the vaccination programme so we can start administering vaccines to priority groups including NHS and social care staff as soon as we get the green light to proceed, and we will continue to take the best independent scientific advice on all vaccination questions.
The hon. Gentleman asked how the decision on who gets the vaccine first will be made. As I have said, administering the vaccines will need to be prioritised, and we will make a decision when we know more about the risk profile. A decision on prioritisation of groups of the population will be taken on the basis of which groups are being most affected by the virus, when the vaccine arrives, and how best to protect the capacity of the national health service. Therefore, there are a range of factors to be taken into account.
Christopher Fraser: I am very grateful to the Minister for her clear answers to my questions. When decisions on prioritisation are taken, will local considerations be taken into account, so that the practitioners on the ground locally will have the final say?
Gillian Merron: We have to ensure consistency across the country, so we will act on the best medical and scientific evidence that we have got.
The Secretary of State outlined earlier how we would keep colleagues in the House informed on these matters during the recess, and I shall come on to that now. The Secretary of State confirmed earlier that, following our request, strategic health authorities will provide weekly briefings for MPs coinciding with the Health Protection Agency's national updates. They will cover the kinds of information that the hon. Gentleman requested, which are important to all Members as constituency MPs. The information will include the numbers of diagnosed and confirmed cases and of hospitalisations, updates on antiviral collection points, and local information on any clusters or other specific developments. There will also be a hotline number to the local SHA so that Members have a direct line to express any concerns, make any inquiries and establish what the position is locally. Local arrangements will vary across the country-the hon. Gentleman talked about his constituency being particularly rural-so this local contact is extremely important. I can also assure the House that the civil contingencies committee will meet weekly during the summer months and Ministers and officials will be in close contact and in dialogue with their counterparts in the devolved Administrations to ensure a consistent UK-wide approach.
The hon. Gentleman raised the important issue of the national pandemic flu service. We have always been clear that it would be virtually impossible to limit the spread of swine flu indefinitely, and in recent weeks it has become apparent that it is no longer effective to continue intensive efforts simply to contain the virus. As a result, we switched our emphasis to treating the increasing numbers getting the virus. I also wish to echo the comments of the hon. Gentleman and of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State earlier by thanking all health workers both on the front line and behind the scenes who have been dealing with the increasing numbers of people with swine flu.
The national health service is coping extremely well and we should pay tribute to its ability to respond to times such as this. As the number of cases continues to grow, we will need to give extra support, so the national pandemic flu service will be instrumental in taking the strain off doctors' surgeries. When we took the decision
to move from containment to treatment, we were clear that the service should be brought into play as soon as it was needed on the ground, so I should stress once again that the technology to launch the flu service has now been available for some time. We have been anticipating and waiting for the point when we saw a significant spread across many areas of the country before it became worth while and sensible to launch the service nationally.
What we have seen in recent days is exactly that eventuality, for which we have been planning and working. A significant acceleration in the spread has taken place, with 55,000 new cases of swine flu reported last week and an equivalent increase in pressure on front-line services. To give an illustration, on 8 July just six primary care trusts reported exceptional levels of flu-like illness, whereas one week later, on 15 July, the figure had increased to 110. It was at that point that the Secretary of State took the decision to activate the national pandemic flu service-the decision was based on demand, not on the availability of technology. This means that the service will go live in England by the end of this week, subject to testing, and will be accompanied by a major public information campaign.
After the launch, people will no longer need to ring their general practitioner if they suspect they have swine flu. Instead, they will be able either to answer questions online via the new website or ring the call centre service, where trained staff will be able to assess them over the phone. If swine flu is confirmed, they will then get an authorisation number, which their flu friend can use to pick up antivirals from local antiviral collection points. As I said earlier, hon. and right hon. Members will receive information on the location and number of collection points as part of a weekly update through their strategic health authority.
Christopher Fraser: Does the Minister accept that many people who feel vulnerable will naturally and instinctively wish to go to see their GP, rather than go online or make a telephone call? With respect, those services have historically not been as successful as they have been set out to be in the past. Added pressure will be put on GPs because people will instinctively still call them first.
Gillian Merron: That tendency is understood, which is why it is so important that this service has been fully tested and will work. It is important to remember that GPs themselves are asking for this, as are the SHAs and the PCTs; everyone across the NHS is saying, "This will help us." I know that the hon. Gentleman knows that if someone has the virus they should not go to their doctor's surgery, because they should be staying at home-I am sure that he promotes that approach in his constituency, as I do in mine. That is a very important, but I certainly agree about the need to reassure and give full communication.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the differences between the interim and the full service. An enhanced national pandemic flu service, based on the original flu line design, is still planned to be available by October. The key differences between the interim and the enhanced service are the following: the enhanced service will have increased functionality to provide greater verification of patients' identity against the database; it will have an
automated interactive voice response function, in addition to call centre handlers; it will allow authorised health care professionals to authorise an antiviral to a patient directly, without completing the full IT assessment process; and it will have an enhanced clinical algorithm, which will include separate pathways-separate ways forward-for adults and for children, with greater flexibility to alter the assessment process.
The hon. Gentleman asked about international work, and I can confirm that the Health Protection Agency and the Department of Health are in regular contact
with colleagues around the world and with international organisations, such as the World Health Organisation, to ensure that we learn all the necessary lessons about how countries are responding to the pandemic and, indeed, to pass on our own good practice and share.
12.29 am
House adjourned without Question put (Standing Order No. 9(7)) .
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