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HomeHealthMatt Hancock says NHS was 'hours' from PPE working out in Covid

Matt Hancock says NHS was ‘hours’ from PPE working out in Covid

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The NHS in England got here inside “six or seven hours” of working out of robes and different protecting tools through the Covid pandemic, Matt Hancock has stated.

The previous well being secretary was giving proof for the third time on the Covid inquiry, in regards to the affect on healthcare techniques.

He acknowledged there was by no means a “nationwide scarcity” of PPE for healthcare employees however “in some locations, they did run out – and it was terrible”.

Requested about stories that some nurses needed to put on binbags early within the Covid disaster, he stated the NHS wanted to “be taught the teachings of what went unsuitable” and put in place “higher stockpiles” for the longer term.

Mr Hancock – who was well being secretary at first of the pandemic in 2020 – will likely be giving proof over two days, because the inquiry investigates the affect on the NHS and healthcare throughout all 4 UK nations.

On Thursday, the inquiry’s chair, Baroness Hallett, needed to sometimes interrupt the listening to to inform bereaved households within the public gallery – a few of whom had been clearly extremely emotional – to decrease pictures of their deceased family members.

Earlier, the previous MP confronted strong questioning in regards to the squeeze on amenities many hospitals had endured on the peak of the 2 most important waves of Covid.

In March 2020, Mr Hancock stated he was “petrified” newly introduced lockdown guidelines won’t be stringent sufficient to keep away from a repeat of scenes in northern Italy, the place some Covid sufferers had struggled to entry any care.

However whereas some hospitals in England got here beneath “extraordinary strain”, the broader NHS system was by no means overwhelmed, he added.

Mr Hancock was then requested in regards to the case of Suzie Sullivan, who died of Covid in 2020.

Medical notes written on the time acknowledged Suzie was not appropriate for a switch to intensive care because of a pre-existing coronary heart situation and having Down’s syndrome. Her father, John, informed an earlier session of the inquiry she was “left to die” due to her incapacity.

Mr Hancock accepted {that a} mattress in intensive care couldn’t be discovered for each particular person affected person who wanted it on the top of the pandemic.

“After all there was huge strain, and naturally, it has penalties,” he stated.

He stated, at occasions, workers ratios needed to be stretched, that means specialist crucial care nurses needed to take care of six sufferers moderately than give the one-to-one care they’d in regular occasions.

However he added: “What we efficiently averted, was an total rationing – to say, ‘folks, based on these traits, aren’t going to be cared for’.”

“That’s what would have occurred if we had let the virus get extra uncontrolled.

“Did folks get as excellent care as they’d have achieved in regular occasions? After all not. There was a pandemic,” he informed the inquiry.

Requested in regards to the imposed visiting restrictions, which meant some family members couldn’t be with dying members of the family of their ultimate hours, and elsewhere, expectant fathers couldn’t attend ante-natal scans, he stated “on steadiness” he believed the federal government acquired the principles “about proper”.

“The place I believe we acquired it unsuitable, as an illustration, was the way in which that the funeral steering was utilized on the bottom – it wasn’t as had been supposed.”

Different witnesses, together with the primary minister of Wales, Eluned Morgan, and Scotland’s former well being minister Jeane Freeman, have recommended a few of these restrictions, or they means they had been carried out, might need gone too far.

Mr Hancock additionally defended the federal government’s ‘Keep Residence, Save Lives, Shield the NHS’ messaging, saying that it was “actually true” that “if we didn’t cease the unfold of the virus, the NHS can be overwhelmed”.

Giving proof lately, England’s chief medical officer, Prof Sir Chris Whitty, stated, with hindsight, the authorities didn’t suceed in letting the general public know the NHS was nonetheless open for non-Covid sufferers through the pandemic.

Mr Hancock alluded to how he had needed to “ruffle some feathers” to guard the NHS from political interference.

He stated he felt it was his job to “defend” the well being service from “folks being troublesome in Quantity 10”.

A number of the interference by political appointees in Downing Road precipitated “unbelievable difficulties” when it got here to rolling out Covid testing, he added.

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