MPs are swapping Westminster for hospital wards as they return to work in the NHS in the national fight against the coronavirus.
Politicians from across the political divide are returning to the frontline to fill night shifts, weekends and, later on, days during the Easter recess.
Labour ’s Dr Rosena Allin-Khan, who does shifts at St George’s Hospital in Tooting, her South London constituency, said it was an “honour” to be able to serve her community.
She said: “Being a doctor goes to the heart of who I am. I’m proud to be an NHS frontline worker. I’ve spent 15 years working in A&E and now, at this time of national crisis, it’s an honour to be back and to work and serve my community.
"The NHS is already in crisis and this outbreak is putting it under further strain.
“I’m really proud to get back and to stand by my NHS colleagues... I think this is a time for our country to come together, a time for our staff to come together.”
It comes after a call from Health Secretary Matt Hancock for doctors and nurses who have left the NHS to return to fight Covid-19.
Tory MP and former nurse Maria Caulfield said she was returning to nursing because, “the NHS will be getting unprecedented numbers of patients needing care, but also because staff are liable to get sick themselves.
"They can only go at 110% pace for so long and will need breaks themselves.” Ms Caulfield, who used to work at the Royal Marsden Hospital in Brompton, West London, is the MP for Lewes, in East Sussex.
She will work on the front line in time for night shifts, weekends and during Parliamentary recess. She said PM Boris Johnson was “very supportive” of her decision.
Kieran Mullan, an emergency medicine doctor, who was newly-elected in Crewe and Nantwich in December, and James Davies, a GP who now represents Vale of Clwyd, are also returning to the NHS.
Parliament will be kept running for the foreseeable future – despite a number of MPs testing positive.
