An insult & untrue
Carers’ fury as Hancock tries to shift blame for Covid chaos
CARERS have hit back at shameless Matt Hancock as his Covid memoirs blame frontline workers for the spread of the virus among elderly care home residents.
An estimated 25,000 people were discharged from hospitals into care homes without being tested as the pandemic took grip, and 20,000 care home residents died from the virus.
In a diary entry for April 2, 2020, the then-health secretary writes: “Negative tests won’t be required prior to transfers/admissions into care homes.” Then on July 16 he claims: “The virus is primarily being brought in by staff, not by elderly people who’ve been discharged from hospital.” The MP, who had the Tory whip removed after abandoning constituents for a reported £400,000 payday on I’m A Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! last month, now has his book Pandemic Diaries being published tomorrow.
National Care Association chairwoman Nadra Ahmed, pictured, right, said: “Matt Hancock’s memory of events bears no resemblance to the facts.
“It’s a huge insult that he’s written this book.
“He did nothing and
He’s chosen to condemn us to justify his failings and for his own benefit
NADRA AHMED NATIONAL CARE ASSOCIATION CHAIR
he’s learned nothing. He’s chosen to condemn those of us who lived through some of the most harrowing times in the history of social care, to justify his own considerable failings and for his own benefit. It feels like we lived in parallel universes”.
Hancock’s book claims he was inundated with thanks for “saving lives” as he quit the Cabinet last summer after being caught kissing aide Gina Coladangelo in breach of his Covid rules.
Justifying his actions while claiming to accept his error, he said: “I made a mistake due to love and it doesn’t matter that it was only guidance. I should not have broken advice that I myself signed off.”
In his diaries he also claims he felt pressured by Tory peer Baroness Michelle Mone to help a firm win a contract to supply Covid tests. The bra tycoon is accused of profiting from a coronavirus protective kit deal through a firm, PPE Medpro, linked to her. In his diaries, Hancock accuses her of sending him a “threatening” message complaining the company she was helping had not secured a lucrative deal. Baroness Mone and her husband, Doug Barrowman, have repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.