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
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Your support makes all the difference.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.
Matt Hancock wanted to decide who should live and who should die during Covid – former NHS boss
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Watch: PPE stockpile was not sufficient, says ex-NHS boss
Cummings accuses ‘lying c***’ Hancock of ‘killing people’
Dominic Cummings has launched another blistering attack on former health secretary Matt Hancock, after the former No 10 official faced a grilling over his expletive-laden WhatsApp messages during the pandemic.
Following his testimony earlier this week, Mr Cummings asked on Twitter whether the true problem was either him “calling Hancock ‘a lying c*** killing people’” or “Hancock actually being a lying c*** killing people”.
Watch: Boris Johnson wrong to blame lockdown on ‘bed-blockers’, says Simon Stevens
Matt Hancock’s permanent secretary told him he was considered a liar
Matt Hancock’s permanent secretary Sir Christopher Wormald said he had “one conversation” with the then health secretary about colleagues believing he regularly said things that were untrue.
But Sir Christopher said the conversation was “mainly about the views of Dominic Cummings”.
“What I was seeing at the time was a very small number of people who were not Mr Hancock’s friends, saying this,” Sir Christopher added.
Matt Hancock was overpromising, not lying, former permanent secretary
The former permanent secretary in the Department of Health has said Matt Hancock often said things that could be considered “overpromising as opposed to untruths”.
Sir Christopher Wormald is being grilled by the Covid inquiry’s lead counsel Hugo Keith KC about why so many people have told the inquiry Mr Hancock was untrustworthy,
“I don’t think there was any doubt that some people thought that about him,” Sir Christopher said.
“I suspect he will be surprised by how widespread it was,” he added, citing evidence given by former top civil servant Helen MacNamara.
But Sir Christopher stuck to the line that he never witnessed Mr Hancock saying things which proved to be untrue.
‘I did not witness Matt Hancock saying something untrue,’ former permanent secretary
The former permanent secretary in the Department of Health said there were “a very small” number of instances in which officials complained about Matt Hancock not telling the truth, reports our political correspondent Archie Mitchell.
But Sir Christopher Wormald said he “did not witness or come across” Mr Hancock having said anything “actually untrue”.
“There were a lot of people who said the secretary of state was over-optimistic,” however, he admitted.
It comes after days of allegations about Mr Hancock being a liar during the Covid inquiry.
Top health department official takes the stage
That's all for Lord Simon Stevens ... up now is Sir Christopher Wormald, the Department of Health’s former permanent secretary.
Watch: Matt Hancock believed he should decide ‘who should live and die’
Racial disparities in Covid death rate spotted in spring 2020, NHS boss says
The former boss of the NHS said in “early spring” 2020, the NHS became aware of the higher death rate among Black, Asian and minority ethnic Covid patients.
Then, at the beginning of April, the health service’s medical director Prof Stephen Powis raised the issue with Public Health England and chief medical officer Chris Whitty, Lord Simon Stevens told the Covid inquiry.
Warning people about long-Covid could have restricted spread of Covid overall
Our political correspondent Archie Mitchell reports:
The former boss of the NHS said warning people about the existence of long-Covid could have reduced the spread of the disease altogether.
Simon Stevens was asked whether a public information campaign about long Covid, which leaves patients with symptoms that can last weeks, months, or even years after infection, would assisted the NHS.
“Possibly, yes,” he said.
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