i heard chris hopson on the radio this morning saying, the example of what happened after thanks givingr day in america. and they are saying that for every day that the restrictions are eased over christmas, we will have to have an extra five days of lockdown in january, let alone the extra strain that it will put on the nhs. i don't wa nt to that it will put on the nhs. i don't want to sound like scrooge but i do worry that a happy christmas will lead to a very unhappy new year. sian, looking at the sunday telegraph, talking about the tiers, and we are going to get an announcement this week on which areas of england stay or move to a different tier. and the idea of maybe a lot of mps have been worried that their areas have been lumped together with higher infection areas, they have been campaigning against that, so will there be any change this week? well, there is a review on wednesday of the tier system, and i think some of the ruralmps, system, and i think some of the rural mps, the tory mps, have been lobbying quite hard to get their regions moved into a lower tier. because as you

chris hopson is the u.k. national health service provider ceo. chris, thanks for joining us.ably oversimplified it. what is the issue for people who have serious allergies? >> let just go back a tiny bit, neil. let's celebrate the fact that we actually do now have a vaccine that works really effectively. it's gone through clinical trials, been approved by the u.k. regulator and the great news is that we started in the nhs vaccinating the first few thousand people over the first part of this week. so that feels like it's light at the end of the tunnel after what's been a really difficult year across the world. but in terms of what you're talking about today, there were two members of our nhs staff who as i understand it had very well-known histories of having particular adverse reactions potentially to two particular elements of -- for example, nut allergies, extreme allergies. effectively what happened is they had a small and i emphasize a small reaction to the vaccine. it's not a particular surprise when you have a new vaccine. then you do expect to get some reaction to it.

lots of good messages there, chris hopson, chief executive of nhs providers.es have started in scotland. 14 homes in five local authority areas are taking part. it's hoped it will help relatives visit their loved ones safely. but concern about the accuracy of lateral—flow tests has prompted some homes in england to stop using them. our scotland correspondent alexandra mackenzie reports. the first minister spent the morning at the western general hospital in edinburgh, one of 23 vaccination centres in scotland. you are the first person to be vaccinated. for those living in care homes, visits from family and friends have been very limited throughout this pandemic. both of alison's parents have dementia and are in a care home. through a window or in a doorway, sort of four metres away with mum stretched out trying to see me, trying to touch me, trying to be with me, and a care worker pulling her back saying, "no, you can't do that," all of that feels wrong, completely wrong. the scottish government hope the introduction of rapid testing of care home visitors will

chris hopson, the chief executive of nhs providers. under intense pressure, at the end of an incredibly stressful and hard year. the implications of the virus continuing to spread at a point where we are at the busiest time of year or approaching the normal busiest time of year when members would say we barely cope, anyway, is significant and really worrying. december and january, very difficult times for the nhs in normal times with the likes of flu and so on, so what would your members say needs to happen? for them to keep going and to keep providing services? the main ask at this moment in time from members is to the wider members of the public, around decisions they make over christmas, and every winter we highlight the pressure on the health service and i remember doing interviews like this in january and this year we have a pandemic on top of that. our members are clear, they want people to take this seriously and there will be a temptation to mix, the rule of red three families can be interpreted in different ways but the fact i

chris hopson is the chief executive of nhs providers, which represents hospital trusts in england.rom the virus will continue to rise. do you think tier 3 is inevitable and should happen sooner than later with the speculation it might happen today? we wrote to the prime minister over the weekend and said three things. we said, please exercise extreme caution before you downgrade any areas. the second was, can you please put any area that needs to be in tier 3 as quickly as possible, as soon as it's needed, without any delay and the third thing we said is that he needs to personally lead a better informed debate about what people do over christmas, where the question shouldn't be, can i do something, it should be, should i be doing something in terms of increased social contact. in terms of putting areas into tier 3, what we saw at the beginning of the second wave is effectively a delay that occurred in places like liverpool and manchester was really, really unhelpful. days matter here and if you delay unnecessarily, you are effectively increasing the virus spread and you are certai

the chief executive of nhs providers chris hopson, explained some of the logistical difficulties in distributingcine. the problem here is that it needs to be transported, as sean was saying, at —70. think of a large pizza box, that's the way we are describing it. that's got to be stored in a fridge at —70. to be frank, the only way you can really do that at the moment is to store them in the hospital hubs. you can only move them four times, and you have to ensure that the two doses are administered three weeks apart, so it's quite complex. so what we're going to be doing is, hospitals at the moment are talking to care home providers to say, how can we get your staff to come into those hospital hubs so we can inject them. we are identifying in hospitals how many over 80s do we have either currently receiving treatment inside a hospital. all people who are coming in for outpatient appointments. meanwhile the supply chain needed to distribute the coronavirus vaccine around the world has been targeted by hackers. the technology giant ibm says it's uncovered a series of cyber attacks targeting a rang

. —— chris hopson. staying with that theme.land. it's still unclear, though, when homes in england and wales will receive the vaccine. the first coronavirus vaccinations in the united states will start tomorrow after the pfizer jab was authorised for emergency use. it comes as the country recorded the world's highest death toll for a single day yesterday, with 3309 covid—related deaths. the food and drug administration approved the vaccine on friday following intense pressure from the trump administration. anthonyjoshua has retained his three heavyweight boxing titles after beating bulgarian, kubrat pulev last night. 1000 fans were allowed to watch at wembley arena as joshua knocked his opponent off his feet several times over nine rounds, before the referee called time. his victory paves the way for a potential fight against britain's other heavyweight champion tyson fury. virgin galactic‘s rocket—powered tourist plane has been forced to abort a milestone test flight after a technical malfunction. spaceshiptwo, which will carr

chris hopson, thank you very much. going to miss you. rafeeq missed his grandfather's funeral, and his honeymoon. i am very sad to be away from my wife and my family. my friends. and i have to work alone over here. he's been working at dhl in singapore for five years, commuting from malaysia every day. but when the border closed, he stayed to keep his job and provide for his family. i hearfrom all of my family members that, oh, the vaccine is in, no words can describe it, very, super happy, i'm super duper happy. after months of waiting, vaccines are finally on their way. but transporting them here to asia in this heat isn't going to be easy. getting the temperature right is critical. 0ne mistake and the entire batch could be thrown away. and that's why cold chain facilities are so important. come in. wow, it is cold here. zuellig pharma is one of the biggest vaccine distributors in asia. it's been investing in new temperature controlled warehouses like this one across the region to get ready for the rollout. they've d

we'rejoined now by chris hopson, chief executive of nhs providers.w, before we think about the next batch. what does your diary look like in terms of getting these distributed to certain nhs trusts and being ready to vaccinate from next week? we know the first batches are on the way and we know we are getting ready... we understand they are here and in storage. they are. what i meant by on the way was on the way to hospital hubs. there are 50 hospital hubs and we know the vaccines will have reached those to enable people to start vaccinating on tuesday. i thought the other thing sean said that was very helpful was the sense of, this is just the first batch that has arrived, and there will be further batches coming along, which again is really helpful. it's not 800,000 on order, there are actually many millions on order, but it's a question of which batches get deliver when. the good news, as you heard from sean, there are more batches on the way, but we start on tuesday. the total number on order is around 40 million, i understand. that starting poin

chris hopson is the chief executive of nhs providers — a membership organisation for nhs services. hs providers, how are you dealing with the news about the variant and the knock—on effect it will have in terms of the rate of transmission and so on? it certainly provides an explanation for what we have been seeing in some of our hospitals in the southern half of the country, where over the last couple of weeks we have seen very alarming increases in the number of hospital admissions. if you remember, go back as a nation, at the beginning of september we have 500 people in hospital with covid. we now have 16,000, just a few months later. that is an increase of 2000 over the last eight or nine days. what you have seen if you look at the graphs in terms of the hospital admission increases, if you look in kent, in london, in parts of the east of england, they are climbing very rapidly. i think our hospital leaders were very concerned and didn't quite understand what was going on. so at least we now know the reason for those very high increases. of course what that means is the nhs in th

as chris hopson, the chief executive of nhs providers, reminded us this morning, controlling infectionof england, cases are up two thirds in the last week, and hospital admissions are up by nearly half. it is necessary to apply tier 3 measures across a much wider area of the east and south—east of england, including buckinghamshire, berkshire, peterborough, the whole of hertfordshire, surrey, with the exception of waverley, hastings and rob are on the kent border of east sussex, and portsmouth, gosport and havantin sussex, and portsmouth, gosport and havant in hampshire. these changes will take effect from one minute past midnight on saturday morning. i know that tier 3 measures are tough, but the best way for everyone to get out of them is to pull together, not just to follow the rules but do everything they possibly can to stop spread of the virus. where we have seen places get the virus under control and come out of tier 3, it's where everyone has taken responsibility on themselves to make that happen. we have seen case rates fall across large parts of england, andi fall across larg