Appearing before the Covid Inquiry, former Health Secretary Matt Hancock lashed out at local authorities and Public Health England as messages between him and minister Helen Whately were revealed
Matt Hancock loses his cool as he’s confronted over care homes
Shamed Matt Hancock lost his cool when confronted with accusations he lied about protecting care home residents during the Covid crisis.
The former Health Secretary snapped and accused public health authorities of having “the wrong attitude” and blasted former No10 mogul Dominic Cummings for “causing all kinds of problems for me”. In a bad-tempered exchange at the Covid Inquiry he struggled to justify his claim that he’d put a “protective ring” around care homes – instead saying he “tried”.
Mr Hancock was read comments by staff which said he had “blatantly lied” and had “no appreciation” of the pressure they face. He shot back: “I don’t think it’s helpful of the inquiry to exchange brickbats.”
Bereaved families have said failure to prevent Covid ripping through care homes amounted to “generational slaughter”. Politician-turned-TV-star Mr Hancock said it was “not possible” to protect residents as much as he wanted as he pointed the finger of blame at others.
Following the exchange, campaign group Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice said: “The truth is, there was no protective ring. Care home residents and staff were abandoned, with deadly consequences.”
The former Cabinet member lost his temper when asked what protections were in place when hospitals were instructed to discharge patients in March 2020 – even though they could not be tested for the virus. The ex-I’m A Celeb participant snapped: “You don’t have to tell me how great the challenges were.
“There wasn’t enough testing, there wasn’t enough PPE. The public health authorities had the wrong attitude and the wrong doctrine. All of these things needed fixing and one-by-one we did everything we could to fix them.
“The challenge for now is to say what’s ready for next time, OK? That’s the only answer I can give, the answer based on the truth at the time. Remember at the time I also had Dominic Cummings and a load of people causing a load of problems for me, and I had Covid.”
The inquiry previously heard evidence from Mr Cummings – a key advisor to Boris Johnson – claiming Mr Hancock constantly lied and should have been sacked.
More than 43,000 deaths involving the virus were recorded in care homes across the UK between March 2020 and July 2022. Despite claiming in March 2020 that a “protective ring” was being placed around them, residents were not tested for coronavirus or isolated when they were discharged from hospital.
The inquiry heard that on March 17 2020, hospitals were instructed to prioritise getting people out of hospital. Mr Hancock said he faced an “impossible choice” and described it as the “least bad” option.
Asked if that was an error, he said: “With hindsight that is absolutely right. At the time with the clinical advice of asymptomatic transmission, that’s not what was clinically recommended… but absolutely.”
Pressed on why he was telling the public that a “protective ring” had been put around care homes, he said: “There were all sorts of things that were brought in… I would stress in that piece of rhetoric that what I said was he had tried. It was not possible to protect as much as I would have wanted.”
The inquiry was shown a chilling message Mr Hancock was sent in April 2020 by health minister Helen Whately – now a key figure in Kemi Badenoch’s team – warning that data on deaths was “not good”.
Mr Hancock said local authorities were responsible for planning the impact of a pandemic on care homes. He told the inquiry he was horrified when he was shown the plans that two had put in place.
“It was a really shocking moment,” he said. “It didn’t take long to work out they were wholly inadequate.” The top Tory – who stepped down at the general election last year – said the “penny dropped” in February 2020 that local plans were “as good as useless”.
Hitting out at his critics, he said: “I’ve seen even from this very chair people who were upset about me taking action that was necessary. They were rude about me at the time, they’ve been rude about me since but it saved lives and that was my job as Secretary of State.”
He also hit out at Public Health England, which issued guidance on February 25 saying: “It remains very unlikely that people receiving care in a care home or the community will become infected.”
Mr Hancock said he was “in a battle” with PHE and said: “By this time we knew there was a really serious problem so I have no idea why PHE said that.”
The inquiry was shown messages between Mr Hancock and health minister Ms Whately – who is now Kemi Badenoch’s Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary. On April 9 2020, Ms Whately said: “I’m afraid been sent first proper data on care home deaths just now and it’s not good.” She said she would discuss it with health officials.
The then-Health Secretary then responded simply: “Ok”. Ms Whately then went on to warn her boss – who was due to give a Covid press conference just over an hour later: “Care home data may come up… we expect official ONS data on Tuesday will show a big jump in deaths.”
Earlier messages showed Ms Whately flagged a care home with 11 suspected deaths, with staff refusing to work. She said international experts say care home residents and staff should be tested. Mr Hancock responded: “I’m up for this and the capacity to do this is growing fast.”
It comes after bereaved families said Government failings around care homes amounted to “generational slaughter”. In an earlier hearing Pete Weatherby KC, representing Covid 19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK, said: “Although the phrase ‘generational slaughter’ within care homes may sound hyperbolic or rather colorful language, it chimes with the experience of thousands of our families.
He added: “We call out the callous way that family members were treated by politicians and policy makers, referring to them as bed blockers and people nearing the end regardless of the virus. This statement reflects that those in charge of policy lost their moral compass in dealing with those receiving care.”
A 2022 High Court judgement ruled the care homes discharge policy was unlawful as it failed to take into account the risk to elderly and vulnerable care home residents of asymptomatic transmission. Between early March and early June 2020, nearly 20,000 care home residents in England and Wales died with Covid-19.
That was about a third of all care home deaths during that period.