Former Health Secretary Matt Hancock rejected the Chief Medical Officer’s call for all residents going to UK care homes at the start of the pandemic to be tested for Covid for Covid, leaked reports show.
Sir Chris Whitty told him there should be Covid testing for ‘all those going into care homes’ – one of 1,000 text and WhatsApp messages leaked by a former journalist who was the ghostwriter of Mr Hancock’s diaries .
But Mr Hancock’s WhatsApp messages revealed he was not following the guidelines, instead telling advisers it is ‘muddying the waters’.
The leaked texts also include exchanges between the former Health Secretary and then Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who revealed he was “quiet crackers” about the UK’s shortage of test kits.
On the morning of June 4, 2020, Mr Johnson sent a message saying: ‘It’s all about testing. That is our Achilles heel. We cannot provide a sensible border policy or adequate track and trace because we cannot test enough.
Sir Chris Whitty (left) told then health secretary Matt Hancock (right) there should be testing for ‘all who go into care homes’, but this guidance was rejected, leaked reports show
A crisis in testing and personal protective equipment turned care homes into ‘war zones’ in late March 2020, as the country plunged into lockdown
“Did we go to the Germans for those kits Angela Merkel offered? What’s wrong with us as a country that we can’t fix this?’
In two follow-up messages, Mr. Johnson said Mr. Hancock’s department had “months and months” to resolve the issue, before adding: “I’m going to quietly crack down on this.”
Mr Hancock replied, ‘Don’t go crackers. We have enough testing capacity to do this. We now have the largest testing capacity in Europe.
“The problem is the false negatives – so the medics are against releasing self-isolation (either for quarantine or T&T) with a negative (sic) test. No one in the world comes out of quarantine with a negative test.
“I went back to CMO and pushed this. I’ll send you the note he sent me.’
The government has introduced mandatory testing for people entering care homes from hospital, but not from the community.
It comes as Mr Hancock was accused of ‘laying social care on the altar to be slaughtered’ after 20,000 elderly residents in homes died from Covid in the first wave.
Matt Hancock and Boris Johnson, then Health Secretary and Prime Minister, photographed during a visit to Bassetlaw District General Hospital on Nov. 22, 2019
The leaked texts also include exchanges between the former Health Secretary and then Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who revealed he was “quiet crackers” about the UK’s shortage of test kits.
In his pandemic diaries, serialized by the Daily Mail last year, Mr Hancock claimed it was not to blame that hospital discharges were to blame, but instead pointed the finger at ‘infections being brought in from the wider community, mainly through staff’.
A set of 100,000 text and WhatsApp messages has been leaked to the Daily Telegraph by former journalist Isabel Oakeshott, the ghost writer of Mr Hancock’s diaries.
Ms Oakeshott, who described lockdowns as an ‘unmitigated disaster’, said she released the messages because it would be ‘many years’ before the official Covid investigation ends, which she claimed could be a ‘colossal whitewash’.
“That’s why I’ve decided to release this sensational cache of private communications — because we absolutely can’t wait any longer for answers,” she said.
The reports show how the politician sent out tens of thousands of Covid tests to meet his daily target of 100,000, even though he knew many wouldn’t get used to it, the Telegraph reported.
A minister from his department said restrictions on visitors to care homes were “inhumane”, but residents remained isolated for months.
Reports also claimed that Mr Hancock’s adviser had arranged a face-to-face test for fellow top Tory Jacob Rees-Mogg’s child at a time of national shortage.
A crisis in testing and personal protective equipment turned care homes into ‘war zones’ in March 2020 as the country went into lockdown.
Weeks later, Mr Hancock was ridiculed for saying that the government had ‘tried to put a protective ring around our care homes’ from the start of the pandemic.
The leaked WhatsApp messages show how in April 2020 Sir Chris demanded ‘testing everyone who goes to care homes’.
The government has introduced mandatory testing for people moving into care homes from hospital, but not from the community (Pictured: Boris Johnson holds a coronavirus rally on 28 February 2020, attended by Sir Chris Whitty, second from right, and Matt Hancock, right)
After initially supporting guidance, Mr Hancock seemed to change his mind, telling aides: ‘I’d rather leave it out and commit to testing and isolating ONLY those who go into care from hospital.
“I don’t think the community involvement adds anything and obscures it.”
The reports put further pressure on Mr Hancock after he was accused of “rewriting history” with his pandemic diaries.
In his entry for April 2, written retroactively, Hancock acknowledged that those leaving the hospital would not be tested, but argued that care homes were given clear guidance on isolation.
He said: ‘The tragic but fair truth is that we don’t have enough testing capacity to check anyway. It’s a downright nightmare, but it’s reality.
“Under the circumstances, we need to ensure that anyone moving from a hospital to a care home is kept away from other residents.
“I hope this message gets through and is followed.”
Mr Hancock disputes the ‘distorted report’ and a spokesperson claimed that the reports leaked by the journalist have been ‘distorted to fit an anti-lockdown agenda’.
The spokesperson said that “instead of spiders and leaks, we need the full, comprehensive investigation.”
They added: “It is outrageous that this twisted account of the pandemic is being pushed with partial leaks, twisted to fit an anti-lockdown agenda, which would have cost hundreds of thousands of lives if followed. What the reports do show is that many people are working hard to save lives.
‘The story about nursing homes is not true at all. What the reports show is that Mr Hancock pushed for testing of those going into care homes when those tests were available.
“The full documents have all been made available to the investigation, which is the right place for an objective assessment so that real lessons can be learned.”
