Hancock: NHS Nearing PPE Depletion During Covid Pandemic

Matt Hancock has stated that the NHS in England was within “six or seven hours” of exhausting its supply of gowns and other protective equipment during the Covid pandemic. The former health secretary was providing testimony for the third occasion at the Covid inquiry, focusing on the repercussions for healthcare systems. He affirmed that there was never a “national shortage” of PPE for healthcare personnel, but acknowledged that “in some places, they did run out – and it was awful”. When questioned about reports of some nurses having to use binbags early in the Covid crisis, he responded that the NHS needed to “learn the lessons of what went wrong” and establish “better stockpiles” for the future. Mr Hancock, who served as health secretary at the commencement of the pandemic in 2020, is scheduled to give evidence over two days, as the inquiry scrutinizes the impact on the NHS and healthcare across all four UK nations. On Thursday, Baroness Hallett, the inquiry’s chair, had to periodically interrupt the proceedings to instruct bereaved families in the public gallery—some of whom were visibly emotional—to lower photographs of their deceased relatives. Earlier, the former MP faced rigorous questioning regarding the strain on facilities many hospitals had experienced at the peak of the two most significant waves of Covid. In March 2020, Mr Hancock expressed that he was “petrified” that newly announced lockdown rules might not be sufficiently stringent to prevent a repeat of scenes witnessed in northern Italy, where some Covid patients had struggled to access any care. However, he added that while some hospitals in England came under “extraordinary pressure,” the broader NHS system was never overwhelmed. Mr Hancock was subsequently asked about the case of Suzie Sullivan, who died of Covid in 2020. Medical notes from that period indicated Suzie was not suitable for transfer to intensive care due to a pre-existing heart condition and having Down’s syndrome. Her father, John, had previously told the inquiry that she was “left to die” because of her disability. Mr Hancock conceded that an intensive care bed could not be secured for every individual patient who required it at the height of the pandemic. “Of course there was enormous pressure, and of course, it has consequences,” he said. He explained that, at times, staff ratios had to be stretched, meaning specialist critical care nurses were required to attend to six patients instead of providing the one-to-one care they would typically offer. But he added: “What we successfully avoided, was an overall rationing – to say, ‘people, according to these characteristics, aren’t going to be cared for’.” “That’s what would have happened if we had let the virus get more out of control. “Did people get as good care as they would have done in normal times? Of course not. There was a pandemic,” he told the inquiry. Asked about the imposed visiting restrictions, which meant some relatives could not be with dying family members in their final hours, and elsewhere, expectant fathers could not attend ante-natal scans, he stated that “on balance” he believed the government implemented the rules “about right”. “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.” Other witnesses, including Eluned Morgan, the first minister of Wales, and Jeane Freeman, Scotland’s former health minister, have suggested that some of those restrictions, or their method of implementation, might have been excessive. Mr Hancock also defended the government’s ‘Stay Home, Save Lives, Protect the NHS’ messaging, asserting that it was “literally true” that “if we didn’t stop the spread of the virus, the NHS would be overwhelmed”. In recent evidence, Prof Sir Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, remarked that, with hindsight, the authorities did not succeed in adequately informing the public that the NHS remained open for non-Covid patients during the pandemic. Mr Hancock alluded to having had to “ruffle some feathers” to safeguard the NHS from political interference. He stated that he felt it was his responsibility to “shield” the health service from “people being difficult in Number 10”. He further added that some of the interference by political appointees in Downing Street caused “incredible difficulties” when it came to the rollout of Covid testing.