Covid inquiry live: Hancock ‘wanted to decide who should live or die if NHS became overwhelmed’

Lord Simon Stevens says Cabinet ministers ‘avoided’ Cobra meetings chaired by then-health secretary

Covid inquiry roundup: Lee Cain and Dominic Cummings provide worrying insight into No 10

Ex-health secretary Matt Hancock believed that he – rather than doctors or the public – should decide “who should live and who should die” if hospitals became overwhelmed with Covid patients, the former NHS chief executive has said.

Lord Simon Stevens said that “fortunately this horrible dilemma never crystallised”, as he told the Covid inquiry on Thursday that it would have to look “very carefully” at the issue of asymptomatic Covid patients being discharged from hospitals into care homes.

Meanwhile, Mr Hancock, who was health secretary at the start of the Covid outbreak, told Public Health England’s then medical director Yvonne Doyle “not to patronise him” when she warned that the virus could be in the UK, she told the inquiry.

She said she was barred from doing media interviews for a time after that, and apologised to him, even though she had been telling the truth.

It comes a day after former top civil servant and ethics chief Helen MacNamara said the “female perspective” was missed during the pandemic as she condemned a “toxic” and “macho” culture at the highest levels of Mr Johnson’s government.

Key Points

• Matt Hancock ‘wanted to choose who lived or died if NHS overwhelmed'
• Revealed: Ministers braced for 840,000 Covid deaths
• Hancock told medical chief not to ‘patronise’ him by telling truth
• Watch: Ministers ‘avoided’ Cobra meetings chaired by Matt Hancock

[7 November 2023 11:03 · Archie Mitchell]

Government chaos over care home testing during the pandemic laid bare

A series of emails shown to the Covid inquiry laid bare the chaos around the government’s drive to discharge NHS patients into care homes, many of whom had asymptomatic cases of Covid.

Dr Ben Warner, who appeared before the inquiry on Monday, sent an email on April 13 to top officials in No10 saying he was “increasingly concerned” about cases picked up in hospital being spread into care homes.

A Cabinet Office official then said he had spoken with the Department of Health’s lead on the issue, who said it was “not an issue of concern”.

Dr Warner urged the official to “push quite hard” on why it was not of concern.

The inquiry’s lead counsel Hugo Keith KC asked if the issue “rumbled on” as to how concerning an issue it was and what was the extent of it. Giving evidence, Simon Ridley, the former head of the Cabinet Office’s Covid-19 taskforce, said “yes”.

(Covid-19 inquiry)

[7 November 2023 10:46 · Archie Mitchell]

Officials expressed ‘serious concerns’ about NHS patients being discharged into care homes

The Covid inquiry has heard that multiple officials raised “quite serious concerns” about NHS patients being discharged into care homes.

At the end of March and beginning of April 2020, Simon Ridley told the inquiry there was an aim to get 15,000 people discharged from hospitals into social care settings to free up capacity in the health service.

But the inquiry’s lead counsel Hugo Keith KC has shown evidence that a number of officials raised concerns about asymptomatic patients spreading the disease into care homes.

The inquiry was then shown an email from a No10 official on April 3, who said the government should consider “more extreme measures or guidance”.

“Given that once someone gets it in one of these places, many die,” the email said.

“We were concerned that there were problems in the care sector that needed to be addressed extremely quickly,” said Mr Ridley, who was head of the Cabinet Office’s Covid-19 taskforce.

[7 November 2023 10:20 · Archie Mitchell]

‘We did not know how many people would need to shield,’ Simon Ridley

The former head of the Cabinet Office Covid-19 taskforce has said the government “did not know with any great certainty” how many people would need to “shield” during the pandemic.

Simon Ridley told the Covid inquiry it would be in the “low millions”, but there was a “constant debate” about whether shielding support should have been offered solely to those who were clinically extremely vulnerable, or those who were also socially vulnerable or generally needed support.

[7 November 2023 10:10 · Joe Middleton]

The inquiry has started and giving evidence first is Simon Ridley...

Mr Ridley ran the Cabinet Office’s Covid-19 taskforce during the pandemic.

[7 November 2023 09:54 · Joe Middleton]

Boris Johnson called Treasury the ‘pro-death squad’ during Covid pandemic, inquiry told

Archie Mitchell and Adam Forrest reported on Monday’s revelations from the inquiry

Boris Johnson joked about the Treasury being “the pro-death squad” during the pandemic because it wanted to ease lockdown restrictions quickly, Sir Patrick Vallance’s diaries have revealed.

The former chief scientific adviser recorded a meeting in which the former PM said he wanted to lift all Covid restrictions by September 2020.

In an extracts from his diary, shown to the Covid inquiry, Sir Patrick said Mr Johnson “ended up by saying the team must bring in the pro-death squad from HMT [Her Majesty’s Treasury]”.

[7 November 2023 09:48 · Joe Middleton]

Good morning

Good morning and welcome to the Covid-19 live blog covering the inquiry. Boris Johnson’s former top aide Lord Edward Udny-Lister and Simon Ridley, the former head of Cabinet Office for the Covid-19 taskforce, will appear to give evidence.

[2 November 2023 21:15 · Lydia Patrick]

Live blog paused

We are now pausing the live blog but will be back tomorrow with all the latest from the Covid inquiry.

[2 November 2023 21:00 · Lydia Patrick]

Yousaf accused of ‘secretive approach’ in row over WhatsApp Covid messages

SNP leader Humza Yousaf has defended his predecessor Nicola Sturgeon amid the ongoing row over WhatsApp messages during the Covid pandemic – as the Scottish Tories insisted she would have broken the law if she had deleted key correspondence.

Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross said the “secretive approach” from the SNP government is treating families left bereaved by the virus “with contempt”.

Ms Sturgeon insisted this week that she has “nothing to hide”, but reports have claimed she destroyed messages.

Mr Ross hit out at an “auto-delete” policy he said had been introduced by the Scottish government. “This is the digital equivalent of building a bonfire to torch the evidence,” he said.

[2 November 2023 20:00 · Lydia Patrick]

Boris Johnson’s No 10 was toxic, sexist and devoid of humanity, says former top civil servant

Boris Johnson oversaw a “toxic” culture of sexism and complacency at No 10 during the Covid crisis, according to scathing evidence given by a former top civil servant to the public inquiry.

Helen MacNamara, the former deputy cabinet secretary, said she could not recall “one day” on which Covid rules were followed in No 10 or the Cabinet Office – claiming that “hundreds” of officials and ministers broke the guidelines.

She also criticised an “absence of humanity” in No 10 and revealed that officials there were “laughing at the Italians” who were overwhelmed in the early stages of the crisis – with Mr Johnson expressing a breezy confidence that the UK would sail through the pandemic.

The former top civil servant also said Mr Johnson did nothing to stop ex-No 10 adviser Dominic Cummings’s misogynistic behaviour after it emerged that Mr Cummings had labelled her “that c***” and said he would “handcuff her and escort her” from Downing Street.

[2 November 2023 19:30 · Natalie Crockett]

Blaming Boris is a cop-out – would a different PM have fared any better?

The Covid inquiry has already exposed how unfit Boris Johnson was to lead national efforts to combat a pandemic.

But, says Mary Dejevsky, it could yet reveal equally crucial failings in the wider government machinery – as well as some small saving graces

Read more here: