I want to hit my target, minister said as he called in favours
Former health secretary exploited loophole on testing times that led to thousands of kits wasted
AS THE clock ticked towards midnight on April 30 2020, Matt Hancock’s selfimposed deadline for reaching 100,000 daily Covid tests was in danger of being missed. A week earlier, the UK was only managing 28,144 tests per day, and more than trebling that figure in a matter of days seemed like a tall order. But Mr Hancock had a trick up his sleeve that enabled him to turn his longshot into a dead cert. It was decided that tests that were dispatched before the deadline would count in the total, regardless of whether they were ever processed. So when an Amazon truck loaded with more than 26,000 test kits left in its depot late that night, Mr Hancock’s daily tally was surpassed, even though he knew that 80 per cent of them might never be returned. Mr Hancock had set the target of 100,000 daily tests at a televised press conference on April 2 2020, a fortnight after the World Health Organisation had told countries infected with coronavirus to “test, test, test”. Whatsapp messages between Mr Hancock, his officials and others show the rising panic in the Department of Health and Social Care as the end of April deadline loomed. Alarm bells started ringing on April 20 2020 when Lord Bethell of Romford, a health minister, messaged Mr Hancock with a warning from the managing director of Boots that the target was not going to be met as things stood. Sebastian James, the Boots boss, had a solution though. If Mr Hancock could get him the swabs, he could ramp up capacity at Boots’ drive-through centres “MASSIVELY”.
James Bethell
Important heads-up on the 100k target* Had a call with Seb James. He says that we’re not on course to hit 100k, either on demand or on capacity. He says he could do MASSIVELY more swabs a day if he’s asked to increase his capacity. At the moment he’s planning to have 20 centres running at around 800 a day (16000) by this Friday. But he thinks he could get to a capacity of 45/50,000 by around Monday if he was asked. He can add extra lanes to existing centres and they have many more sites where they could open earlier than the the current plan. This adds 25k/pd from PHE plus Doug 25k/ pd ,which would get us to 100k/pd. There are two considerations. Firstly, if we have a great, big marketing push with (1) paid-for media, (2) a big #10 prezzer that hits the headlines and (3) NHS give their people a nudge, we might see a surge in demand, and we’ll need the capacity to meet it. Secondly, it would be better to have the capacity figure up to 100k next thursday even if the demand isnt there, and at the moment he says the capacity figure wont be there. Let’s discuss. He needs a greenlight todayish. [20/04/2020, 14:58:09] Just over an hour later, Mr Hancock gave his approval. In doing so he appeared to agree with Lord Bethell that it was better to prioritise getting the capacity figure to 100,000, even if the demand from the public was not yet there. As the days counted down to April 30, it appeared from the messages that Mr Hancock might even be willing to risk wasting tests in order to hit his 100,000 target. With three days to go before the deadline, Lord Bethell contacted the former health secretary again. He explained that Doug Gurr, the then boss of Amazon UK, had “more kits” that could be sent out on Thursday – deadline day. Lord Bethell explained that the “bottleneck” was laboratory capacity and asked his colleague to help ensure there was space to process the tests. Mr Hancock’s response shows that he was aware 80 per cent of the at-home tests being sent out were not being returned. At the time, there was a national shortage of testing supplies – as soon as swabs were restocked, vials ran low. In care homes, a lack of tests prevented staff from keeping Covid “at bay”, a parliamentary committee later concluded. But instead of halting the dispatch, and preventing vital resources from potentially going to waste, Mr Hancock appeared to want to exploit this loophole. There is no suggestion of wrongdoing by Mr Gurr, Amazon UK, or any other courier.lord Bethell, apparently realising what was being proposed by Mr Hancock, pointed out that the daily testing total counted test kits from the moment they were dispatched, rather than when they had been processed. With one day to go, Lord Bethell messaged Mr Hancock with an update. A fifth of people who booked drivethrough tests had not shown up, but the message suggested they could just use the “booked numbers” anyway. Mr Hancock did not reply to this message. Throughout the day on April 30 – deadline day – a Whatsapp chat labelled “testing group” lit up with frequent updates as the testing figures rolled in. A senior civil servant working on the UK testing programme kept the team informed on the progress of the Amazon test kits as At 6am on May 1 2020, the testing team received confirmation that a truck had left the Amazon warehouse “before midnight” with 26,000 tests on board But as the officials began to tally up the different kinds of tests, Mr Hancock appeared concerned that the number would be too high. He messaged Emma Dean, one of his aides, saying they needed to be very careful not to let the “statos” – statisticians – make them look “flaky”, particularly regarding the Amazon figures. Mr Hancock’s concern appeared to mount when he realised that the final figure would exceed 100,000. Back in the testing group Whatsapp chat, Duncan Selbie, then chief executive of Public Health England (PHE), updated the team with his department’s testing contribution. Mr Selbie’s figures included more than 13,000 tests from the Swiss pharmaceuticals firm Roche, which Mr Hancock described as “extraordinary”. Another member of the group, who signed messages only as Sam, advised caution, saying the excess came from “a large amount of accumulated stock from April”. There is no suggestion of wrongdoing by Roche.
‘We should be very very careful that the statos don’t accidentally make us look flaky’
On May 1, 2020, Mr Hancock announced that his “audacious” target had been met, saying: “The number of tests… on the last day of April, was 122,347. This unprecedented expansion in British testing capability is an incredible achievement.” Gina Coladangelo, at this point a non-executive director in the health department, who would go on to have an affair with Mr Hancock, congratulated the team. She told the staff that cold drinks were in the fridge at “DH” – the Department of Health and Social Care’s offices. “Feel free to open them before we are back,” she messaged. The text ended with a clinking beer mugs emoji. Building a stable test and trace system was one of the Government’s biggest challenges during the pandemic. The cache of messages obtained by The Telegraph show that the celebrations on May 1, 2020, were premature. Baroness Harding of Winscombe, the former chief executive of Talktalk and the wife of Tory MP John Penrose, was appointed as the head of NHS Test and Trace on May 7, making her the testing “tsar”. Baroness Harding inherited the centralised testing operation that Mr Hancock had pushed for throughout April. This system could have allowed for greater control over the supply chain, but one message sent from Mr Johnson to the former health secretary in early summer suggests he felt that the country was still struggling to get a hold of enough test kits. At 6.43am on June 4, 2020, Mr Johnson appeared desperate when he messaged Mr Hancock. By early autumn, the testing programme appeared to be on the verge of collapse. The reopening of schools and universities created a sharp rise in demand for tests, which the system was unable to fulfil. MPS later criticised test and trace for failing to meet “the most predictable of demands” during this period, suggesting that “lessons that were learnable during the pandemic were not applied”. As the crisis unfolded, the leaked Whatsapp communications show Mr Hancock firefighting bad news stories. In one exchange on Sept 3, 2020, the former health secretary was advised by Damon Poole, his media aide, against agreeing to an interview with Andrew Neil. As the month went on, Mr Hancock appeared to clamp down on engagement between the testing team and the media. The long-awaited NHS Covid-19 app launched in England and Wales on Sept 24, 2020, only to fall at the first hurdle when it emerged that tens of thousands of people were blocked from logging their results. Humiliatingly for the Government, it was people tested by the NHS, which fell under pillar one or “p1” tests, who were affected by the glitch. When the former health secretary heard on Sept 26, 2020 that Simon Thompson, managing director of the NHS Covid-19 app, was intending to do a television interview, he began to worry. By Nov 5, 2020, Test and Trace had failed in its central promise to avert another lockdown, and a national stay at home order was reintroduced. However, messages sent at this time suggest Mr Hancock was not aware of the shortcomings within the testing programme. On Nov 9, 2020, Mr Osborne took to the airwaves to criticise the testing regime. Mr Hancock messaged the When Mr Cummings went before the “coronavirus: lessons learnt” select committee in May 2021, he claimed Mr Hancock had been “interfering” with building a test and trace system “properly for the medium term” during April 2020 and diverting resources to make sure his target was met. Mr Hancock appeared before the same group of MPS on June 10 ,2021. He defended his legacy on testing, saying: “The purpose of the target was to galvanise the system. And it worked.” former chancellor, asking: “What was this for?”