Covid Pandemic: Testing of Care Home Residents Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Aaron Bell
Main Page: Aaron Bell (Conservative - Newcastle-under-Lyme)Department Debates - View all Aaron Bell's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
Covid Pandemic: Testing of Care Home Residents
Aaron Bell Excerpts(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Helen Whately
I do not recognise the hon. Lady’s account at all. If she looks back at one of the legal cases that has looked into this question, she may find more accurate information about some of the conversations that went on behind the scenes. I can assure her that, as she would expect, in my capacity as social care Minister, I fought the corner for people receiving care—both home care and in care homes—throughout the pandemic.
Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)
Leaked WhatsApp messages will be partial and selective, but in reading even those I note that the Minister was doing her job on behalf of my constituents. In a message on 8 April, she spoke up for a care home in Newcastle-under-Lyme and raised it with the Government and her fellow Ministers. Everyone was doing their best. I served in the lessons learned inquiry, and there are lessons that can be learned with the benefit of hindsight, but the hindsight that we have seen from the Labour Front Bench is opportunistic. Does she agree that the Government were doing everything they could to respond to an unprecedented situation under severe pressure and severe supply and capacity constraints?