Yesterday was a momentous day. After years of campaigning, Matt Hancock finally appeared at the UK Covid Inquiry to answer questions about why the UK was so unprepared for the pandemic.
He confirmed what we already knew; that he and the Government entirely failed to plan to save lives, instead focusing their attention on disposal of bodies in what they accepted as an ‘inevitable’ crisis.
Whether this was down to complacency, incompetence or reluctance to spend the necessary money, our loved ones and the British public deserved better from their Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.
Matt Hancock tried to shrug responsibility by repeatedly pointing towards pre-existing flaws in the social care system, leaving us wondering why those flaws were allowed to persist in the decade in which Matt Hancock’s party was in power.
He also suggested that the whole of Western Europe failed to prepare for a pandemic that could be stopped in its tracks through lockdowns, but we want to know why the UK was so much later than other European countries in taking the action needed to delay the spread of Covid 19.
Most of all, we want to know why we have suffered the sixth worst death toll in the world, and we want to make sure that the UK never sees suffering like this ever again.
As our member Lindsay Jackson said on Sky News, “we want answers. Matt Hancock claimed he threw “a protective ring around care homes”. But yesterday he admitted he didn’t know how many care homes there were or where they were, so that makes a nonsense of that claim”: https://twitter.com/KayBurley/status/1673962132793065472
Your support allows us to keep campaigning so that these failings are learned from, and no future government is ever able to claim ignorance when it comes to preparing for a pandemic ever again.
We need your support to make sure that Matt Hancock is not let off the hook at any stage of the inquiry and his awful failings are never repeated. To help us do this, please donate to our Crowdfunder here https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/covid-bereaved-must-be-heard-at-the-covid-inquiry
Any donation, no matter how small, makes a huge difference.