Two daughters who lost loved ones to coronavirus have slammed Matt Hancock following accusations that he rejected advice to test everyone in care homes equally.
Ann O'Connor, 54, lost her mother Elsie Matthewson, 86, when she contracted Covid-19 during the first national lockdown. Elsie, who lived in a care home in Durham, died on April 22, 2020.
Elaine Rennie, 52, lost her dad Alistair Rennie, 82, and brother Mark Rennie, 47, both from Whitley Bay, North Tyneside, to Covid within days of each other.
Read more: Matt Hancock responds after wearing Newcastle United shirt he auctioned off for NHS workers
Alistair had been in hospital with a bowel complaint shortly before catching the virus. He then passed it on to his bedbound son Mark, who had MS, and they both died in April last year.
On Wednesday, former Health Secretary Matt Hancock was accused of rejecting advice to give Covid tests to all residents going into care homes during the height of the pandemic in April 2020. The allegations are based on more than 100,000 leaked WhatsApp messages obtained by the Daily Telegraph.
A spokesperson for the West Suffolk MP said reports he rejected clinical advice on care home testing was "flat wrong" because he was told it was "not currently possible" to carry out the tests.
Ann said Elsie passed away at the University Hospital of North Durham and she was unable to say goodbye due to abiding by the lockdown rules imposed by the Government.
The mum-of-two, who lives in the Gilesgate area of Durham, said: "At the end of the day anyone put into a shut door care home should have been tested before they were allowed through the door - whether that was carers, the management or patients from hospital.
"I think he's treated the elderly in this community like a throw away commodity. You can just throw them away, they don't count.
"My mam took ill around the 14th April so if people had been getting tested, and the carers themselves had access to testing, then it would have been a case of my mam might not have caught it. I can't say I'm 100% certain she wouldn't have but she could have had more of a chance of not getting it.
"It doesn't seem real. One moment she was there and the next moment she was gone. The next time I saw her she was in her coffin.
"We weren't allowed in so why were they allowing people in from anywhere without being tested? If he managed the situation differently there could have been a very different outcome.
"I think 'I'm a Celebrity' showed that all he was out for was for people to feel sorry for him. I'm sorry but I don't feel sorry for him. He is responsible for raising the death toll of Covid because he made my mam and all the other people sitting ducks."
Elaine's dad Alistair lost his life on April 13, 2022 and her brother Mark passed away on April 21 last year. Due to Alistair's age and Mark's MS, they both were highly vulnerable to the virus.
Elaine has raised concerns about how and when her father contracted the virus and how both men were treated. She has been in touch with executives at the Northumbria Healthcare NHS Trust - which runs North Tyneside Hospital in North Shields.
The professional singer, who now lives in her dad's home in Whitley Bay, described the accusations made towards Matt Hancock as "shocking".
She said: "The mentality is that older people don't matter because they don't have long left but they need more care, they're more vulnerable.
"He should have tested everyone equally to give everyone a chance of life because it's a killer. It killed my dad and my brother in the same week. It could have cost lives.
"It's very important to follow the correct procedure to save their lives. There's nothing more important than saving lives. That's the most important thing anyone could do.
"He should be doing more, not less. It would be a different story if it was his nana or grandad."
Matt Hancock's office allege that the messages were provided to the Telegraph by journalist Isabel Oakeshott. They said she was handed them by Mr Hancock while she worked on his Pandemic Diaries memoir and they have been "spun to fit an anti-lockdown agenda".
A spokesperson for Matt Hancock said: "These stolen messages have been doctored to create a false story that Matt rejected clinical advice on care home testing. This is flat wrong.
"On April 14th Matt received a response to his request for advice from the Chief Medical Officer’s that testing was needed for people going into care homes, which he enthusiastically accepted. Later that day he convened an operational meeting on delivering testing for care homes where he was advised it was not currently possible to test everyone entering care homes, which he also accepted.
"Matt concluded that the testing of people leaving hospital for care homes should be prioritised because of the higher risks of transmission, as it wasn’t no possible to mandate everyone going into care homes got tested.
"The Telegraph have doctored the messages by excluding a key line from the texts by Allan Nixon. Nixon says, "I wasn’t in testing mtg", which changes the context of the exchange depicted in the article. It demonstrates there was a meeting at which advice on deliverability was given.
"By omitting this, the messages imply Matt simply overruled clinical advice. That is categorically untrue. He went as far as was possible, as fast as possible, to expand testing and save lives. This story categorically shows that the right place for this analysis of what happened in the pandemic is in the inquiry."
Read more:
Matt Hancock's Dancing on Ice appearance lands show in hot water with angry ITV viewers
Matt Hancock grilled on GMB about I'm A Celeb stint and why he didn't follow pandemic rules
GMB's Kate Garraway in emotional confrontation with Matt Hancock over rule break and husband Derek
Jill Scott jokes she's 'going to complain' about Matt Hancock's £320,000 I'm A Celebrity fee
Matt Hancock's gargantuan I'm A Celeb fee revealed after appearance on ITV show
