South Wiltshire MP volunteers for national vaccine programme

Dr Andrew Murrison is pleased to be helping with the the COVID-19 programme in London

Author: Sophie CridlandPublished 26th Feb 2021

South West Wiltshire MP and Royal Navy Reservist Dr Andrew Murrison is doing his part for the pandemic by volunteering to help the NHS.

He has been called up as part of the Armed Forces' Operation to support the national COVID-19 vaccination programme at the Excel centre** in London.

He was approved as an NHS Medical Support Worker under COVID emergency regulations in June and undertook training designed for doctors returning to the NHS in order to assist in the pandemic.

The second time was in 2003, when Surgeon Commander Murrison was called up during Operation TELIC, to serve as a battlegroup Medical Officer in Iraq.

Andrew said:

"I'm pleased to be able to do my bit to help out alongside a large number of my own constituents in South West Wiltshire - regulars, reservists, volunteers and medics returning to the NHS.

"Our NHS is doing brilliantly in this crisis. We should all be very proud of the UK vaccination programme and those on the frontline of this crisis."

The Defence currently has 4600 (and over 430 Reservists) personnel working on 66 COVID related tasks across the UK, over 430 of those are reservists.

Parliament is currently largely operating remotely and this together with the upcoming recess means Andrew and his office will be able to continue dealing with constituency issues.

Andrew spoke in the debate on COVID in the Commons this week. He welcomed the Prime Minister's easing of lockdown and asked, if continuing encouraging data allowed, if the timetable might be reviewed to ease restrictions sooner.

Hear all the latest news from across the UK on the hour, every hour, on Greatest Hits Radio on DAB, smartspeaker, at greatesthitsradio.co.uk, and on the Rayo app.