A lady who lost her father to Covid teared up as she described her father as a "lamb to the slaughter" amid claims Matt Hancock ignored advice on care home testing during the pandemic.
The former Health Secretary has furiously disputed suggestions that he ignore clinical guidance when he decided to make it mandatory to test those entering care homes from hospital but not those coming from the community. WhatsApp messages leaked to the Daily Telegraph showed Mr Hancock said he did not think committing to testing those from the community - including care home staff - added anything and "muddies the waters".
Jean Adamson, who lost her father to the virus in 2020, spoke to Ed Balls and Susanna Reid on Good Morning Britain today about how she felt that her father was a "lamb to the slaughter" over the decisions made.
Speaking on the show today, she said: "I am appalled quite frankly, sickened - but I'm not surprised at all. This just provides further evidence, confirms what we suspected and feared all long that Matt Hancock lied his way through. He was more focused on meeting his targets at the time than the welfare of our most vulnerable members of society ...
"Whilst these untruths are being peddled, we can't even hope to learn lessons."
She added: "Because, you know, there has been this lack of transparency from the very outset. My father, amongst tens of thousands of other care home residents, were lambs to the slaughter and Matt Hancock has really treated us with contempt."
Matt Hancock's spokesperson said the messages were "doctored to create a false story" that the Tory ignored clinical advice.
A spokesperson for Matt Hancock said: "These stolen messages have been doctored to create a false story that Matt rejected clinical advice on care home testing. This is flat wrong. On April 14th Matt received a response to his request for advice from the Chief Medical Officer’s that testing was needed for people going into care homes, which he enthusiastically accepted.
"Later that day he convened an operational meeting on delivering testing for care homes where he was advised it was not currently possible to test everyone entering care homes, which he also accepted."
They continued: "Matt concluded that the testing of people leaving hospital for care homes should be prioritised because of the higher risks of transmission, as it wasn’t no possible to mandate everyone going into care homes got tested.
"The Telegraph have doctored the messages by excluding a key line from the texts by Allan Nixon. Nixon says, 'I wasn’t in testing mtg', which changes the context of the exchange depicted in the article. It demonstrates there was a meeting at which advice on deliverability was given. By omitting this, the messages imply Matt simply overruled clinical advice.
"That is categorically untrue. He went as far as was possible, as fast as possible, to expand testing and save lives. This story categorically shows that the right place for this analysis of what happened in the pandemic is in the inquiry."
