Appless Hancock must go Health Secretary ‘costing lives’
Cummings in threat to pubs
COVID-19 CRISIS: FACING
TORY MPs are desperate to ditch “incompetent” Matt Hancock, saying the Health Secretary has “cost lives” and should have known his failed tracking app would never work.
This week he abandoned plans for the NHS to have its own app for logging who Covid-19 patients had come within two metres of.
The app, in development for months and tested on the Isle of Wight, only registered four per cent of nearby iPhones.
Hancock tried to blame tech giant Apple, saying the firm would not change its technology to help the app work. Apple said it knew nothing about the Government’s proposal.
But ministers had already hit a similar problem trying to develop a different app two years ago – when Hancock was in charge of UK digital policy.
Home Secretary
Sajid Javid wanted to
HUNDREDS of pubs could be lost under a scheme from Downing Street aide Dominic Cummings. He wants development corporations to decide retail and residential switches.
But it is believed locals will be lost without strict council controls. Dom
The British Pub Confederation said: “It’s too easy for pubs to be shut and converted into flats or supermarkets.”
It is feared a third of the UK’s 48,350 pubs won’t survive if lockdown lasts till autumn. use a smartphone app to register 3.5 million EU citizens for settled status in the UK before Brexit.
That also worked with Android phones, but not with iPhones.
Apple refused to make what it saw as compromises to its software, despite a visit from Mr Javid to its Silicon Valley HQ.
A former official on the project said: “It was no secret in Whitehall that Apple wasn’t cooperating. Matt Hancock would have known that, he was the Secretary of State for Digital for goodness’ sake.
“There’s no point spending millions on an app without Apple’s assurance they’ll make it work.”
One angry Tory said of the latest fiasco: “Many MPs want to see the back of Hancock. His incompetence has cost lives. But there’s no way the PM can fire his Health Secretary in the middle of a pandemic. That would destroy what public confidence is left.”
The Health Secretary has been under fire for a string of blunders, including failing to get enough PPE – then blaming frontline NHS staff for using too much.
He is also in charge of social care, seeing the death rate double in April when care homes were flooded with residents sent back untested from hospitals.
And he tried to keep care home deaths out of daily statistics – giving figures as much as 64 per cent lower than they really were.
On April 8, when 1,445 died, the official figure was 881.
Now his contact tracing system is working in fewer than three quarters of cases. Of 5,949 cases notified in the week from June 4, just 4,366 were reached by tracers.
Another senior Tory MP said: “The trouble with Matt Hancock is he is obsessed with targets. Which he frequently misses.”