Former health secretary Matt Hancock faced a grilling during the UK Covid-19 Inquiry as Jacqueline Carey KC demanded he stopped interrupting her questions. He argued the government did “everything we possibly could” in the face of the virus.“Does that mean, in a system that employs 1.4 million people in the NHS, with another around two-and-a-half million in social care, that every decision was perfect? Of course, it wasn’t.”Asked whether the imposition of visiting restrictions, which meant that some people could not be at the bedside of a dying relative, or could not have their partner with them in childbirth, were too strict, he said: “I think that we were balancing incredibly difficult considerations on both sides. I think, on balance, we got those broadly right across the pandemic, but I entirely understand and feel the very strong arguments on both sides.”He added: “Where I think we got it wrong, for instance, was the way that the funeral guidance was applied on the ground, it wasn’t as had been intended.“But of course, funerals are places where people gather and are deeply emotional and people come together, and that was also the thing that was driving the spread of the virus. So these were very difficult considerations, and broadly on balance, I think they were about right.
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00:00Can I give you an example please of some evidence that we've heard from Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham
00:04And I want to know if if this kind of information filtered up to you. They had in March 2020
00:1067 ICU beds and they went to April following month to
00:16126 and nearly doubled. Yeah, that meant for them finding out 205 additional doctors. Yeah
00:23429 nurses yeah and an extra 59 actual physical beds
00:28Yeah at a time when they had 25% absence of work. Yeah, what's due to ill health now?
00:33Were you being told not that's actually let me finish, please
00:37Were you being told that's actually what it means if a hospital has to double up its surge capacity
00:43We've got to find vast numbers of staff
00:45Yeah, not only was I being told but I was seeing it. I went to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham
00:52I saw it for myself. So yes, of course
00:56And I
01:00I was I was I was deeply involved for instance in
01:04Trying to hire more doctors and get doctors who had retired back into the workforce in order to try to solve these problems
01:12so
01:13You know
01:13The reason I interrupted is the question gives the impression that I was somehow
01:17Set set sat in an office this whole time
01:20I was out on the ground as much as I could be and and and talking to people about what the real-world
01:25Problems were as well as getting the official advice through paperwork. That's how you lead in a in a crisis as big as this
01:34Can I ask you to just pause for a second?
01:36Some of these questions are not designed to trip you up. Mr. Hancock
01:40I want to understand whether some of the detail that we've now heard did in fact make its way to you
01:46That's all I was asking. Okay, and I'm being emphatic in my response that it's it's not not only did I get it in?
01:53Reports as much as the data was available
01:55But I I chose to go out there and see it myself now
01:59Were you made aware that not everyone who needed an ICU bed got an ICU bed?
02:04Yes in yes in individual cases that happened. Yes
02:09We've heard a number of examples some of which we've provided to you
02:13And I'd just like to take you through some of them for your comments on them if I may right
02:19And
02:20You are aware. I think that on the first day of evidence we heard from mr
02:24Sullivan who told us about his daughter Susie who had Down syndrome and was taken to hospital
02:30Yeah, and she was refused admission to ICU because what was recorded on the notes
02:35well, she had cardiac comorbidities she had a pacemaker and
02:39had Down syndrome and
02:41Did you get reports like that that people were being denied?
02:45ICU care I did get reports like that and I also got reports
02:52about the misuse of
02:57DNR notices as well. I
02:59Come on to that. Well, they're they're all part and parcel of the same thing because it's about
03:04It's about availability of care. Yeah, and if you recall I was also getting advice from the BMA and others that we should
03:13We should have a code of who you should give care to and not and I've come on to that as well
03:18Yes, but what I'm saying is I was deeply involved. Of course, not only did I know these things were happening
03:23I was fighting on behalf of those to whom it was happening