Covid Pandemic: Testing of Care Home Residents Debate
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Peter Bone
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Covid Pandemic: Testing of Care Home Residents
Peter Bone Excerpts(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Helen Whately
The hon. Lady is right about the importance of testing. It is a view that she has and that I had at the time; some of the exchanges will show how I, as Social Care Minister, was arguing very hard for testing for care homes, as Members would expect. I know that other Ministers and other people were arguing for the things that they had oversight of. Ultimately, of course, the Health Secretary and the Prime Minister had to make decisions, based every step of the way, clearly, on the scientific advice on these things, as we did. To that point, during the course of the pandemic, as the capacity allowed, millions of tests were distributed to care homes. As I have said, as the capacity increased, care homes were prioritised in that process. Specifically to address one of the points she made, let me say that the guidance set out on 15 April was not only that everyone discharged from hospital to a care home should be tested, but that they should be isolated.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
It seems that the Opposition want to rewrite history. The fact is that at the time people did not know what was right or what was wrong. The then Secretary of State listened to a whole lot of advice and then had to make a decision. Even one of the WhatsApp messages I have seen said:
“Tell me if I’m wrong”.
What should happen is that the covid inquiry should deal with all these matters properly. The one question I have for the Minister is this: is it possible to get the covid inquiry to report earlier?
Helen Whately
I completely agree with my hon. Friend about the covid inquiry being the right place for people to go through the details of what happened—who said what and, as he said, the genuine debates that took place behind the scenes. This was a new virus and, at the time, we had only limited information about it. For instance, when it first hit our shores, it was not known who would be most vulnerable to it. We also did not know about asymptomatic transmission. There was a huge amount of uncertainty at the time, but the best possible decisions were made. As for the timing of the public inquiry, that is not within the control of Ministers.