A FORMER health secretary from Worcester has said the government will be able to cope during the pandemic after the Prime Minister was admitted to intensive care with coronavirus.

Stephen Dorrell, who was the Conservative government’s health secretary until 1997, was interviewed from his Worcester home on Sky News yesterday, wishing the Prime Minister a quick recovery.

Boris Johnson was first admitted to St Thomas’ Hospital in London on Sunday and was transferred to intensive care on Monday after his condition worsened.

Mr Dorrell, a city born former Conservative MP and minister, now a Liberal Democrat, said the Prime Minister is a ‘big-hearted guy and I would be confident he will pull through and pull through quickly.’

However, the pro-European, who has opposed Boris Johnson’s stance on Brexit, said: “Of course, it’s an unsettling piece of news. It’s inevitably unsettling when the Prime Minister is in intensive care. It’s particularly worrying for his own family. I would stress that the machinery of government does not depend on a single individual.”

He expressed confidence in Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary and first secretary of state, who is deputising for the prime minister while he is in hospital, other ministers and the hundreds of civil servants who advise the government. He said health secretary Matt Hancock, who has recovered from coronavirus, now had a responsibility in the circumstances to ensure that the NHS and the health and care system, including social care, had the ‘maximum possible capacity’ to deal with Covid 19 cases as they arise and that there was sufficient personal protective equipment for staff. Mr Dorrell also said support in a social care setting was important to avoid people presenting at hospital and that people needed proper support in the community when they are discharged from hospital.