Matt Hancock failed to follow expert advice to test everyone entering a care home at the start of the pandemic, according to a massive leak of WhatsApp messages.
The ex-health secretary snubbed guidance from chief medical officer Professor Sir Chris Whitty in April 2020 to test “all going into care homes”, telling the aide the move would just “muddy the waters”.
The texts were passed to the Telegraph by journalist Isabel Oakeshott, who also helped Hancock write his book, Pandemic Diaries.
They were sent just days before the publication of “Covid-19: Our Action Plan for Adult Social Care”, a government document setting out plans to keep the care system functioning during the pandemic.
Initially, Hancock said Whitty’s advice to test everyone entering care homes represented a “good positive step” and that “we must put into the doc”, to which an aide responded that he had sent the request “to action”.
But later the same day, Hancock messaged again saying he would rather “leave out” a commitment to test everyone entering care homes from the community and “just commit to test & isolate ALL going into care from hospital”.
“I do not think the community commitment adds anything and it muddies the waters,” he said.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that, from March 2020 to January 2022, there were 43,256 deaths involving Covid-19 in care homes in England.
Of those, more than 17,000 occurred in the four months between Mr Hancock being given the advice and it being implemented.
A spokesperson for Hancock said: “It is outrageous that this distorted account of the pandemic is being pushed with partial leaks, spun to fit an anti-lockdown agenda, which would have cost hundreds of thousands of lives if followed. What the messages do show is a lot of people working hard to save lives.
“The story spun on care homes is completely wrong. What the messages show is that Mr Hancock pushed for testing of those going into care homes when that testing was available.”
The public inquiry into the UK’s handling of the pandemic is now underway and is due to begin hearing evidence in June.
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