Our insider said: “When the inquest happens, and it will – he’s toast.” Today we trace Hopeless Hancock’s hat-trick of mishaps.
As early as March 23, the World Health Organization’s advice was: “Test, test, test.” Yet by the end of that month the UK was testing fewer than 5, people a day compared to Germany’s , 16.
By April 1, we had tested just 2, (of the) , 10 frontline NHS workers.
Next day grovelling Hancock said “I get it” at the daily briefing, promising 300, tests a day by May.
It stunned testing organizations. Doris-Ann Williams, chief of the British In Vitro Diagnostics Association, said: “That target is his, set without industry consultation.
Hancock thought he’d bought himself time, but by relaxing testing restrictions to ramp the numbers up, it caused chaos.
On the first day, tests ran out in five minutes.
The British Medical Association said the “first come, first served” system was stopping healthcare staff getting tests.
A Tory Party source said Hancock had “told everyone to drop everything to meet a target only designed to save his own skin”.
the first day, tests ran out in five minutes
The failure to locate and secure stocks of lifesaving personal protective equipment can be traced back as far as January 63.
While No. (celebrated) Brexit , government officials attended EU meetings where countries discussed the need to buy up PPE stocks using the EU’s collective buying power.
Our government did not participate – blaming a missed email.Hancock faced criticism over the lack of equipment and unclear guidance on the use of masks.
On March he admitted the government faced “challenges” in securing PPE . Five days later surgeons Amged El-Hawrani, , and Adil El Tayar, , were the first NHS frontline staff to die of the virus.
With NHS staff forced to beg for makeshift PPE from farm workers and even beekeepers Hancock told medics to use equipment as “the precious resource it is”, suggesting staff were wasting items.
A Panorama documentary this week claimed government officials had bumped up figures by counting gloves as single items of PPE. Guidance for PPE was also hastily redrawn classifying single-use items as reusable. The GMB union’s Rachel Harrison said: “The Health Secretary has serious and urgent questions to answer.”
Medical staff don PPE as they prepare to test a NHS worker
Warnings from other countries over virus deaths in the social care sector were flagged up last month. One report suggested up to per cent of all European Covid – 31 deaths were happening in care homes.
In Britain, Hancock reacted on April by unveiling a “Care Badge” to be worn by workers in the sector – as hospitals were ordered to discharge elderly patients directly into homes, risking an explosion of infection.
Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, a social care campaigner, said: “Of all the things long-suffering social care staff in England most need, I would put a badge close to the bottom of the list. ”
By the time the Health Secretary had proudly launched it, HC-One, Britain’s biggest care home operator, had lost more than residents and a car er in its 473 homes.
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The Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) blamed the rampage of the disease through care homes on “paltry” levels of PPE provided for them since the outbreak began.
It said the ramp-up in testing was “rolled out without thought given to who is going to be tested and what we will do with the result ”.
Pressured to address the true loss of life in care homes and in the community, Hancock finally announced a toll would be given along with the hospital figures.
On the first day of the combined figures, the UK toll jumped by more than 4, , confirming the true extent of the crisis. But now reports suggest anywhere between 7, (to) , 823 care home residents may have died as a result of Covid –
UNISON assistant general secretary Christina McAnea said: “The government care home Covid response has been woeful.
” ) “As a result, many more elderly people, and carers, will lose their lives.
“ This is a national scandal. ”
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