Archive for: Political Services

The Economy Summary is part of our Weekly COVID-19 Bulletin, sent every Thursday. You can sign up to receive your copy here.

GDP 

UK gross domestic product (GDP) is estimated to have grown by 0.4% in February 2021, as Government restrictions affecting economic activity remained broadly unchanged. February’s GDP is 7.8% below the levels seen in February 2020, compared with 3.1% below the initial recovery peak in October 2020. Latest estimates show that January’s GDP fell by 2.2%, an upward revision from negative 2.9%.  

The latest National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) tracker suggests that GDP is likely to have fallen by around 1.5% in the first quarter of this year. Assuming that the vaccination and re-opening programmes continue to run to schedule, NIESR estimate growth to be 4.6% in Q2, driven by pent-up demand and a return towards pre-Covid levels in the hospitality and retail sectors. 

Their month-on-month forecast for March, when many children returned to school, is for growth of 1.8%. April is then forecast to see growth of 2.2%, driven by the partial re-opening of pubs and restaurants. 

Rory Macqueen, Principal Economist – Macroeconomic Modelling and Forecasting at NIESR, said: ‘Despite little change in restrictions, a return to growth in February and upward revisions to January GDP mean that the contraction in the first quarter will be much smaller than anticipated. Clearly much of the economy has adapted to cope with Covid-19 restrictions. If the vaccine programme and lifting of restrictions continue on schedule, this provides a firm basis for continuing growth in the second quarter and 2021 overall. The third wave in Europe and the success of other countries in vaccinating their populations will also have relevance for the recovery of the UK, as an open economy.’

Economic impact 

A new report from the Resolution Foundation think tank finds that young people have experienced a ‘sharp rise’ in unemployment during the pandemic, with the increase fastest among recent education leavers and young Black people.

The report attributes the rise to disproportionate employment in sectors such as hospitality and leisure which have been worst hit by the pandemic, adding that the unemployment rate for 18-24 year-olds rose 18% between April-June and July-September of last year. Those who recently left education face a 40% increase in unemployment, as the think tank warns of a double hit on 18-24 year-olds of both losing their jobs and being unable to find work in the first place. The Resolution Foundation calls on the Government to do more to protect young people from the impact of long-term unemployment by expanding and extending its Kickstart youth jobs scheme. 

Recovery 

On the day that non-essential shops and other businesses in England reopened for the first time since January, studies suggested that the bounceback in the economy could be broader and faster than previously expected. According to analysis by YouGov and the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), consumer confidence has risen to its highest level since August 2018.

The CEBR has predicted that savers will unlock more than a quarter of £192bn in lockdown rainy-day funds this year, adding £50bn to consumer spending. About £314m is expected to be spent in the newly reopened hospitality sector in this week alone, it said, while figures from the Post Office showed that Britons withdrew £590m in cash in March, the highest monthly figure since September. 

Deloitte’s survey of bosses at some of the UK’s biggest public companies found that the potential spending boom was helping to fuel record levels of optimism among chief financial officers in charge of companies’ purse strings. Respondents said they now expected a ‘strong recovery in profits over the next 12 months, with profit expectations back to the previous high seen in mid-2014 at the top of the economic cycle’. 

Among smaller firms, the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) said it had found the greatest level of optimism among its members since 2014. Just over half (58%) of the 1,700 companies questioned expect their performance to improve this quarter, while 31% expect it to worsen. The FSB’s small business index has risen to +27.3 for the first quarter of 2021, a marked improvement on the -49.3 score at the end of last year. 

Former Bank of England Governor warns of post-pandemic inflation 

Mervyn King, who served as Governor of the Bank of England between 2003 and 2013, has warned of rising inflation as Covid-19 restrictions are eased. Speaking at the Royal Economic Society’s annual conference, Lord King said that central banks and finance ministries across the world are becoming overly dependent on stimulus as a means to support economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

This analysis contrasts with views expressed by most members of the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee, but it chimes with projections made by the Bank of England’s chief economist Andy Haldane, who has previously warned of cost of living pressures as lockdown measures are relaxed. 

King said he believed Governments should focus on providing targeted assistance for workers and businesses that have suffered most during the crisis using the tax and benefits system rather than stoking overall demand by pumping billions into fresh stimulus programmes. He suggested that heavily indebted firms should be allowed to collapse in order to boost growth and optimise Britain’s post-pandemic recovery, stating that there is ‘no argument for a dramatic set of expansionary policies’.

The Health Summary is part of our Weekly COVID-19 Bulletin, sent every Thursday. You can sign up to receive your copy here.

Oxford/AstraZeneca Vaccine
This week the Government announced that people under the age of 30 with no underlying health conditions will be offered an alternative vaccine to the Oxford/AstraZeneca drug where possible. This followed a statement by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation which confirmed reports of an extremely rare blood clots following vaccination with the first dose of AstraZeneca.

Given the very low numbers of events reported overall, there is currently a high level of uncertainty in estimates of the incidence of this extremely rare adverse event by age group. However, the available data does suggest there may be a trend for increasing incidence of it with decreasing age, with a slightly higher incidence reported in the younger adult age groups. The decision is a precaution, and the Government has encouraged the public to continue to take up their offer of the vaccine.  

Professor Martin Marshall, Chair of the Royal College of GPs responded to the news: ‘Today’s announcement from the MHRA, and also the EMA, should be taken as reassurance for patients that overall, the benefits of taking the AstraZeneca vaccine for COVID-19 outweigh the risks… It’s vital that patients understand that the risk of developing blood clots after receiving the AZ vaccine is incredibly low for all patient groups.’ 

Roadmap out of lockdown 
The Prime Minister announced on Monday that the country would go ahead with the next stage of the Government’s roadmap out of lockdown. From Monday 12 April, non-essential shops will reopen along with personal care services and indoor gyms. Outdoor hospitality will also open up, including pub beer gardens.  

With this the Government confirmed that everyone in England, including those without symptoms, will be able to take a free rapid coronavirus (COVID-19) test twice a week. Alongside vaccine rollout, it is hoped that regular testing will help the reopening of society, helping to suppress and control the spread of variants. Updates to the NHS Covid-19 app will also be made to coincide with the new test offering.

Health and Social Care Secretary Matt Hancock said: ‘Around one in three people who have COVID-19 show no symptoms, and as we reopen society and resume parts of life we have all dearly missed, regular rapid testing is going to be fundamental in helping us quickly spot positive cases and squash any outbreaks.’ 

Danny Mortimer, chief executive of the NHS Confederation said that lockdown easing must be done cautiously ‘to ensure the NHS has capacity to tackle the huge backlog of treatment, deal with the growing demand for mental health services, and also allow its exhausted and overstretched staff the respite they so desperately need.’ He also welcomed the new commitment on testing but said that there must be resources in place for people to self-isolate if they receive a positive test.  

Covid-19 transmission 
An update to the REACT-1 study, one of the country’s largest studies into COVID-19 infections in England, has been published today. Findings show infections fell by approximately 60% from the last REACT study in February, with only one in 500 people infected. However, the prevalence of infections has now plateaued, showing it is critical everyone continues to follow the guidance and rules to help control the epidemic. 

The study also found that the correlation between prevalence of infections and deaths has diverged, suggesting that infections may have led to fewer deaths since the start of widespread vaccination through the Government’s vaccination programme. 

NHS Providers said: ‘We need to be alert to a possible rise in COVID-19 infections with lockdown restrictions being eased next week and the ongoing risk from variant strains which now pose the greatest threat to our efforts to control this pandemic. It is absolutely crucial that everyone continues to follow the guidance to prevent a rise in infections and further deaths.’ 

The Economy Summary is part of our Weekly COVID-19 Bulletin, sent every Thursday. You can sign up to receive your copy here.

Economic outlook
UK gross domestic product (GDP) is estimated to have increased by 1.3% in Quarter 4 (Oct to Dec) 2020, revised from the first estimate of 1.0%. The level of GDP in the UK is now 7.3% below its Quarter 4 2019 level, revised from the previous estimate of 7.8%.

There have also been some revisions to earlier quarters in 2020. GDP in Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 2020 is now estimated to have fallen by 19.5%, while it is estimated to have increased by 16.9% in the third quarter. However, the annual picture is largely the same. Over the year as a whole, GDP contracted by 9.8% in 2020, slightly revised from the first estimate of a 9.9% decline.

This is the largest annual fall in UK GDP on record, while historical figures from the Bank of England point to this being the largest annual contraction since ‘The Great Frost’ of 1709.  

Separately, the UK economy was the worst performer among the G7 group of wealthy nations last year, in part reflecting that the public health restrictions imposed have been in place for longer, as well as having higher levels of stringency. 

The latest monthly GDP estimates for January 2021 show that there was a 2.9% contraction in the UK economy, as the third national lockdown weighed further on GDP. The latest Business Insights and Conditions Survey showed that 42% of trading businesses had experienced a fall in turnover in early March 2021, compared with normal expectations for this time of year. This is an improvement from earlier in the year, implying that there might be a slight rebound in output in March.

The Flash UK Purchasing Manager’s Index for March paints a similar picture, finding higher levels of business activity in March underpinned by the prospect of the lifting of restrictions. This included ‘forward bookings from domestic consumers, while some manufacturers cited advanced orders from hospitality businesses and high-street retailers’. 

Recent figures from the Bank of England (BoE) showed that in March, businesses estimated that their sales in 2021 Q1 would be 20% lower than they otherwise would have been because of Covid-19, with employment 9% lower and investment 21% lower.

Overall, uncertainty continued to fall in March. The percentage of businesses that viewed overall economic uncertainty as high or very high fell from 67% in January and 58% in February to 57% in March, the lowest level since February 2020.

The number of payrolled workers declined by 693,000 between February 2020 and February 2021, while there are 4.7m employees furloughed as of the end of February 2021 that are mostly concentrated in the accommodation and food service activities, and wholesale and retail trade industries.  

According to a new report from the Learning and Work Institute and The Prince’s Trust, supported by HSBC UK, youth unemployment will remain high after other areas of the economy begin to recover. The economic cost of youth unemployment, in terms of lost national output, is forecast to rise to £6.9bn in 2022. The fiscal cost of youth unemployment, in the form of lower tax revenue and higher benefit spending, is forecast to be £2.9 bn in 2022.

The long-running scarring cost to young people entering the labour market in 2021, in terms of lost earnings and damage to employment prospects, is forecast to be £14.4bn over the next seven years. 

Plan for Growth and second meeting of the Build Back Better Business Council
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson hosted  the second meeting of the Build Back Better Business Council, which was established in January as a high-level forum for engagement between businesses and the Government. There, they set out how to make 2021 the ‘year of economic recovery’.

Ahead of the meeting, Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng wrote an open letter to businesses on the Government’s Plan for Growth. 

The Plan for Growth looks ahead, building on the best of the Industrial Strategy set out in 2017 and refreshing the Government’s long-term strategy for growth in light of a new economic landscape, including the pandemic, the net zero target and the UK’s new place on the world stage as an independent nation outside the EU.

The Plan for Growth sets the path to invest in infrastructure, skills and innovation to ‘build back better’, while harnessing the strengths, resilience and creative spirit seen from businesses over the past year. This Government will focus on achieving three priority objectives: tackling geographic disparities, enabling the transition to net zero and supporting their vision for Global Britain. 

Tuesday’s Council meeting particularly looked at the innovation pillar of the Plan for Growth and discussed the Government’s upcoming Innovation Strategy, due to be published this Summer. 

Minimum wage rises
Around two million of the UK’s lowest-paid workers will get a pay rise from Thursday as the minimum wage goes up. The National Living Wage will rise 2.2% to £8.91, the equivalent of over £345 a year for a full-time employee. And for the first time since it came into effect in 2016, more younger people will be eligible for the National Living Wage, as the age threshold will be lowered from 25 to 23 years old. The rise means someone working full time on the National Living Wage from April 2021 will be taking home £5,400 more annually than they were in 2010.

The new rates – announced at the Chancellor’s Spending Review 2020 – were recommended by the independent body the Low Pay Commission, following extensive consultation. 

The Health Summary is part of our Weekly COVID-19 Bulletin, sent every Thursday. You can sign up to receive your copy here.

Anniversary of the first Covid-19 lockdown
In the week that marks a year since the first lockdown was announced in the UK, the Prime Minister spoke of the ‘epic endurance’ of the British people. Speaking at the Downing Street Press Conference he said: ‘For month after month our collective fight against Coronavirus was like fighting in the dark against a callous and invisible enemy, until science helped us to turn the lights on and to gain the upper hand’.

The Prime Minister gave his thanks for the efforts behind the vaccine roll-out as well as the ongoing effort of public sector workers including in the NHS, social care, education and the police.  

The Government is yet to confirm its plans to hold a public inquiry to the handling of the coronavirus pandemic, despite calls from the Opposition. During Prime Minister’s Questions this week, Opposition Leader Kier Starmer spoke of the ‘shocking’ numbers of people who have lost their lives to Covid-19. He said: ‘As soon as restrictions lift, there must be a full public inquiry, because that is the only way we can get to the bottom of the many mistakes that were made during the pandemic and find justice for those who have suffered so much.’

The Prime Minister said that there will be an inquiry into the lessons learned as soon as it is right to do so, when it won’t diverge the attention of the key officials involved.  

UK Health Security Agency
The Health Secretary Matt Hancock has announced that a new agency, UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), will be established in April 2021 to lead protection against future health threats. The UKHSA, which is to replace the short-lived National Institute for Health Protection, will become the UK leader for health security, providing intellectual, scientific and operational leadership at national and local level, as well as on the global stage.

The body is ran by Deputy Chief Medical Office, Dr Jenny Harries and will bring together the key elements of Public Health England with the Joint Biosecurity Centre (JBC), and NHS Test and Trace. UKHSA will initially focus on the continued fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.  

Responding to the announced, NHS Providers said: ‘We welcome further clarity from the Government on the new public health infrastructure. The pandemic has highlighted why it is so important to have long-term investment in public health services in recognition of the vital role they play in supporting overall health and wellbeing and building resilience in health protection’.

The new agency has also been welcomed by Cllr Ian Hudspeth, Chairman of the Local Government Association’s Community Wellbeing Board, who said: ‘The UKHSA needs to be able to operate nationally as a global player to major health threats. This needs to be aligned with councils’ ability to react swiftly on the ground, using their local knowledge, expertise and skills.’ 

There have also been wider calls for clarity on the other areas of public health, surrounding the broader determinants of health, including from the Health Foundation who said: ‘While the focus now is on organising to make sure the country can respond better to a future pandemic, much more important in the long run is making sure that Public Health England’s existing function to improve the health of the population is strengthened, and commands more political focus and investment.’

Speaking at the Local Government Association Annual Public Health Conference 2021, Hancock suggested he would lay out wider public health reform plans in the coming days. 

The Coronavirus Act 
The Coronavirus Act will have its annual debate in Parliament today. Members are expected to keep the Act in place, but the Government has suggested the removal of some of the Act’s components. Most notably as part of the it’s one-year report, the Government has concluded that it will seek to end the controversial ‘Care Act Easements’ which relaxed the duties for local authorities to provide care.

In England, only eight local authorities (LAs) have used these powers, but not since 29 June 2020. The Government said that over the past year, support groups and the social care workforce have remained resilient under significant pressure, and continued to deliver their duties without the need to operate under easements.  

Adult social care
A report published by The National Audit Office today on adult social care has concluded that innovation and investment in the sector have been hampered by short-term funding and the lack of a long-term vision.

It said: ‘COVID-19 has focused attention on social care as never before. It has highlighted existing problems with social care and emphasised significant gaps in the Department’s understanding of the market’.

Responding to the report, Danny Mortimer, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said that the ‘pandemic has shone a harsh light on how fragile and severely under-resourced the country’s social care system has become after failures by successive Governments of all parties to act.’

He has called for the Government to rapidly deliver on its manifesto pledge to transform the sector. The Nuffield Trust said that the report has exposed the fundamental flaws and fragility of the social care provider market: ‘Organisations providing adult social care were struggling long before the pandemic took hold, with years of delay to any meaningful reform of the sector storing up the problems exacerbated by the pressure of Covid-19.’

The Health Summary is part of our Weekly COVID-19 Bulletin, sent every Thursday. You can sign up to receive your copy here.

Vaccine roll-out
The Government has confirmed that more than 25 million people in the UK have received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. This includes 95% of people aged 65 and over, and nine in 10 of those clinically extremely vulnerable.

The announcement comes as a letter from NHS England has said that health services should stop booking under-50s for their first-dose appointments for the whole of April. The letter explained that the move was necessary because of a ‘significant reduction in weekly supply’.  

However, speaking at the Downing Street Press Conference on Wednesday, the Health Secretary Matt Hancock praised the vaccination roll-out and confirmed that the Government is on track to offer the first dose of the vaccine to all over-50s by 15 April, as well as all adults by the end of July.

He confirmed that from Wednesday all people over 50 are invited to come forward and get their first Covid-19 jab. He also highlighted the importance of the vaccine rollout and showed data which demonstrates that after a first dose, protection against hospitalisation is around 80% and protection against death is around 85%.  

Professor Martin Marshall, Chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners, has responded to the news of potential vaccine supply issues, he said: ‘This disruption to supply is disappointing and will understandably be frustrating for patients, as it will be to GP teams running vaccination sites who want to protect as many people as quickly as possible – but we continue to receive assurances that this delay is temporary, and the vaccination programme remains on target.’ 

Digitalisation of the health services 
The Health Foundation published research this week on the positives of the use of healthcare technology during the pandemic. It found that around three fifths of NHS users increased their use of technology to access care during the first phase of the Covid-19 pandemic and an overwhelming majority of these (83%) viewed their experience positively. However, when compared to traditional models of care, NHS users are not so favourable to the use of technology in health services. Notably, NHS users 55 and older reported slightly higher proportions of negative experiences with the digitalisation of the health services.  

The Health Foundation recommends that there should be more research on the use of the technology in the NHS to ensure quality in long-term digitalisation of services, and so that changes are user centred. They also call for a refresh of the NHS Long Term Plan to optimise the use of recent technological innovations to meet longer term quality and productivity goals.  

Today the Health Secretary confirmed more NHS hospital trusts would benefit from the Digital Aspirants programme. 32 more trusts will now join those already participating in the programme. Seven will get up to £6m each over the next three years. The rest will get £250k seed funding to help them develop business cases for further digital investment. 

Impact of Covid-19 on health services
A report published by the Institute for Public Policy Research this week claims that the ambitions of the NHS Long Term Plan risk being severely disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic without a significant funding boost. It has suggested a £12bn blueprint to ‘build back better’, and made recommendations including creating a sustainable workforce, greater funding for the NHS, upgrading digital care and reforming social care making it free at the point of use.  

Marking a year since the first Covid-19 lockdown was announced
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) published a report on the impact of the pandemic a year on from when the first lockdown was announced. Since March 2020 more than 140,000 people have now died with Covid-19 in the UK. The number of adults in critical care in hospitals was far higher than previous winters. In the last week of January 2021, more than 5,000 adult critical care beds a day were occupied in hospitals in England, compared with around 3,000 a day in the same week in 2020.

The report also highlighted the wider impacts of the pandemic, including on the labour market, unemployment, the economy, and crime.   

NHS Providers said that the report lays bare the terrible toll of Covid-19 and the ‘immense pressure’ on the NHS over the past year. 

The Health Summary is part of our Weekly COVID-19 Bulletin, sent every Thursday. You can sign up to receive your copy here.

NHS Test and Trace

A report published by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on NHS Test and Trace (NHST&T) has argued that despite the ‘unimaginable’ cost, the scheme has failed to deliver on its central promise of averting another lockdown. The Committee argued it is hard to justify the cost of the scheme, which is over £37bn, after it found no clear evidence of the NHST&T’s overall effectiveness and its contribution to reducing Covid-19 infection levels.

The Committee Chair Meg Hillier said: ‘DHSC and NHST&T must rapidly turn around these fortunes and begin to demonstrate the worth and value of this staggering investment of taxpayers’ money…British taxpayers cannot be treated by Government like an ATM machine. We need to see a clear plan and costs better controlled.’

Labour said that the report shows the failures of the outsourced scheme and that it ‘underlines the epic amounts of waste and incompetence, an overreliance on management consultants, taxpayers’ cash splashed on crony contracts, all while ministers insist our NHS heroes deserve nothing more than a clap and a pay cut. The Conservatives’ wasteful obsession with outsourcing must end and contact tracing should be run by our public health teams.’

Although the Government is yet to respond to the report, the Prime Minister has recently praised NHST&T for its impact on getting children back into school and enabling the country to ‘cautiously and irreversibly’ reopen its economy. Also on Tuesday, the Health Secretary Matt Hancock praised the NHST&T team for successfully testing 1.5m people in one day.

NHS staff pay rise

The debate on NHS staff pay following on from their work during the pandemic has continued this week. This comes after last week the Government proposed a 1% rise in NHS staff pay, which Labour argues is actually a pay cut after inflation.

Speaking to the House of Commons on Wednesday, Labour Leader Kier Starmer said: ‘The mask really is slipping, and we can see what the Conservative party now stands for: cutting pay for nurses; putting taxes up on families. He has had the opportunity to change course, but he has refused to do so.’

NHS Providers called the pay proposal a ‘disappointment’ and said a real terms pay increase ‘would go some way towards recognising and rewarding the contribution and the sacrifices that the NHS workforce has made over the past year.’

The Government has repeatedly justified its decision; on Wednesday the Prime Minister highlighted that the Government has delivered a 12.8% increase in the starting salary of nurses over the last three years and has boosted nursing recruitment. An independent pay review will make a final recommendation for NHS staff pay in the coming months, until then, it is likely that this debate will rumble on.

NHS waiting lists 

NHS England data published this morning shows the full extent of the impact of the second coronavirus wave on non-Covid-19 health services. 4.59m patients were waiting to start elective care treatment at the end of January 2021, with 304,044 of these patients waiting over a year. Waiting times for cancer treatment have also increased.

Nuffield Trust highlighted that the NHS waiting list is now at the highest point since records began in August 2007. It suggested that although non-Covid activity has been higher than in the first wave, the pandemic response has slowed the stream of routine and it is likely that with referrals to GPs also falling in January, there is a hidden patient group not yet on the waiting list that will need treatment in the future. It calls for a plan to boost NHS capacity, with additional resources as the damage from the pandemic is likely to be felt in years ahead.

The Health Foundation also called for additional support for the NHS and staff. Dr Jennifer Dixon, Chief Executive of the Health Foundation, said: ‘The Government and NHS leaders will now need to be clear with the public about how they intend to deal with the backlog of unmet need, as well as achieve the ambitions to modernise care set out in the NHS long term plan. This will need significant investment at the next Spending Review, in particular if we are to see improvement on waiting lists and plugging staff shortages, which are holding back progress.’

Covid-19 vaccine

The roll out of the Covid-19 vaccine has successfully continued this week, with latest figures showing that over 22m people have had their first dose. The roll out is now reaching all people over 55 and those in the priority groups. 40,000 unpaid careers are also eligible for the vaccine from this week. The Health Secretary Matt Hancock recently said that the Government is on track to offer a first dose to the entire adult population by the end of July.

In a speech to the Global COVID-19 Vaccine Supply Chain and Manufacturing Summit, Hancock attributed the UK’s vaccine success to investing early into vaccine research and clinical trials around the world, as well as adopting an ambitious roll-out schedule.

The Health Summary is part of our Weekly COVID-19 Bulletin, sent every Thursday. You can sign up to receive your copy here.

The Prime Minister announced his roadmap to ease lockdown restrictions on Monday. The four-step plan would see schools reopen to all pupils on 8 March, non-essential shops, outdoor dining and beer gardens open no earlier than 12 April, and indoor mixing, drinking and dining, hotel visits and limited crowds at sporting events to return from 17 May at the earliest. If all goes to plan, all the final restrictions, including on nightclubs and mass-attendance events like football matches could be lifted from 21 June.

The Prime Minister said that these ‘cautious’ easements plans would be based on ‘data not dates’ with assessments of the easing of restrictions based on four areas:

1. Vaccine deployment
2. Evidence showing that vaccines are effective in reducing hospitalisations and death
3. Infection rates and hospital capacity
4. New variants of concern.

He told the House of Commons: ‘The end really is in sight and a wretched year will give way to a spring and a summer that will be very different and incomparably better than the picture we see around us today.’

Leader of the opposition Kier Starmer said that this current lockdown has to be the last, highlighting that this is the third time the country has come out of a national lockdown. He said that the success of the vaccine rollout will be essential, while track, trace and isolate must also be working effectively. He proposed a £500 payment for workers so that they can isolate if necessary, as well as better protection for school children and teachers.

NHS Providers welcomed the cautious approach to releasing restrictions. Chief executive Chris Hopson said: ‘While the cautious approach outlined in today’s Roadmap won’t be fast enough for some, history has sadly taught us that rushing headfirst into lifting lockdown leads only to rapid reimposition, tragic loss of life and avoidable patient harm.’

Hopson also called for continued momentum behind the vaccination programme and an effective strategy to rapidly identify and control future outbreaks from variant strains. NHS Confederation’s chief executive Danny Mortimer echoed this point, arguing that there needs to be more clarity on the four tests laid out by the Government and effective public messaging, warning, ‘we can cannot afford a fourth national wave of COVID-19, which would risk even greater damage to a fragile and tired health service’.

The Health Foundation said that easing of lockdown should be used as an opportunity to Build Back Better: ‘As we see the light at the end of the tunnel, the Government needs to ensure that no one is left behind, particularly the most vulnerable. Longer term there must now be a major Government focus on eradicating the deep-seated health inequalities that the pandemic has exposed.’

In other news, the Health and Social Care Secretary came under fire this week for claiming that the NHS did not run out of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) during the peak of the pandemic last year. This comes after a judge last week found that the Health Secretary had breached his legal obligation to publish details within 30 days of PPE contracts being signed. Hancock has since claimed that details were published late because his Whitehall staff were focused on ensuring that there was no national shortage of PPE.

Speaking in the House of Commons Shadow Health Secretary highlighted that there were instance off PPE shortages, he said: ‘The National Audit Office reported on it, we saw nurses resorting to bin bags and curtains for makeshift PPE, hundreds of NHS staff died.’ He called for greater scrutiny of the PPE contracts and any money to be recovered on contracts which produced unusable PPE.

It was announced that people with severe learning disabilities would be given greater priority in the Vaccines Delivery Plan. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) confirmed that all those on the GP learning disability register would be invited to receive a vaccine as part of cohort 6. This is because of their perceived risk to Covid-19, due to issues including that individuals in the group are more likely to have underlying health issues and that some people with learning disabilities are more exposed to Covid-19 if they live in residential care.

Responding to the decision, Disability Right’s UK said: ‘People with learning disabilities are six times more likely to die from coronavirus than people without learning disabilities. It is hugely welcome news that everyone with learning disabilities can now be urgently protected by vaccination.’ The Learning Disability charity Mencap also welcomed the ‘fantastic news’.