Matt Hancock says NHS was 'hours' from PPE operating out in Covid

The NHS in England got here inside “six or seven hours” of operating out of robes and different protecting gear throughout the Covid pandemic, Matt Hancock has mentioned.

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

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

Requested about experiences that some nurses needed to put on binbags early within the Covid disaster, he mentioned the NHS wanted to “study the teachings of what went mistaken” and put in place “higher stockpiles” for the longer term.

Mr Hancock – who was well being secretary at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 – shall be giving proof over two days, because the inquiry investigates the influence 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 have been clearly extremely emotional – to decrease images of their deceased family.

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

In March 2020, Mr Hancock mentioned he was “petrified” newly introduced lockdown guidelines may not 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 below “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 said Suzie was not appropriate for a switch to intensive care as a consequence of a pre-existing coronary heart situation and having Down’s syndrome. Her father, John, instructed 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.

“In fact there was monumental strain, and naturally, it has penalties,” he mentioned.

He mentioned, at instances, workers ratios needed to be stretched, which means specialist essential care nurses needed to take care of six sufferers moderately than give the one-to-one care they’d in regular instances.

However he added: “What we efficiently averted, was an total rationing – to say, ‘folks, in keeping with 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 performed in regular instances? In fact not. There was a pandemic,” he instructed the inquiry.

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

“The place I believe we received it mistaken, as an example, was the way in which that the funeral steerage 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 instructed a few of these restrictions went too far.

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

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

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

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

A few of the interference by political appointees in Quantity 10 brought about “unbelievable difficulties” when it got here to rolling out Covid testing, he added.