Bereaved families are “in tears of anger and pain” following evidence from Dominic Cummings about the government’s handling of the pandemic, a campaign group has said.
“Horrible, upsetting and bleak”
The prime minister’s former aide said ministers, officials, and advisers fell “disastrously short” of the standards that should be expected in a crisis. He said Boris Johnson was more concerned about the impact on the economy than the need to curb the spread of the virus and save lives.
Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice response to Dominic Cummings select committee appearance.
Today is a horrible, upsetting and bleak day for the over 150,000 bereaved families across the country.
1/5 pic.twitter.com/kScSHTHO30
— Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK (@CovidJusticeUK) May 26, 2021
Covid-19 Bereaved Families For Justice, set up in the wake of the pandemic, said 26 May was a “horrible, upsetting and bleak day for over 150,000 families across the country”.
In a statement on Twitter, the group said:
The evidence from Cummings is clear, that the government’s combination of grotesque chaos and uncaring flippancy is directly responsible for many of our loved ones not being with us today – and the refusal to have an urgent statutory inquiry risks others joining them.
That this information is being unveiled in a pantomime-style spat between Cummings and Johnson, littered with independence day, Jeff Goldblum and spiderman references, is utterly inappropriate and makes this even more appalling.
This spectacle is a million miles from that and has left many of the bereaved in tears of anger and pain today. The Government’s statutory inquiry now has to start immediately and include regular interim reporting.
That this information is being unveiled in a pantomime-style spat between Cummings and Johnson, littered with independence day, Jeff Goldblum and spiderman references, is utterly inappropriate and makes this even more appalling.
3/5
— Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK (@CovidJusticeUK) May 26, 2021
The organisation has been calling on the government to release its internal “lessons learned” investigation into the handling of the pandemic. The campaign group said “serious questions” need to be asked of those in power, adding that “waiting until next year means the information will simply be leaked in an insensitive and hurtful manner – and even worse, lead to more unnecessary deaths”.
From the horse’s mouth
Cummings claimed that the government sent hospital patients with coronavirus (Covid-19) back to care homes and suggestions they were shielded are “complete nonsense”. He suggested Johnson was furious when he came back to work after recovering from coronavirus to find that untested patients had been discharged to care homes in England, thereby allowing the virus to spread.
He said health secretary Matt Hancock had told Johnson previously that they would be tested.
Cummings told MPs:
So that was one of the other things that I, that we, found shocking, that when we realised in April that this had happened, the Prime Minister said a less polite version of ‘what on earth are you telling me?’.
When he came back after being ill: ‘What on earth has happened with all these people in care homes? Hancock told us in the Cabinet Room that people were going to be tested before they went back to care homes, what the hell happened?’
Cummings said he and the PM had been told “categorically in March that people will be tested before they went back to care homes”. He added:
We only subsequently found out that hadn’t happened. Now all the Government rhetoric of ‘we put a shield around care homes’ and blah blah, was complete nonsense. Quite the opposite of putting a shield around them, we sent people with Covid back to the care homes.
Hancock
In April 2020, Hancock came under fire for allowing patients to be discharged to care homes without a coronavirus test. During media interviews, he insisted that from the beginning of the pandemic the government had tried to “throw a protective ring around our care homes”.
There have been 36,275 deaths involving coronavirus in care homes since the pandemic began, according to the latest figures from the UK’s statistics agencies.
Care
Nadra Ahmed, chairwoman of the National Care Association, said that Cummings’ remarks about care homes were met with “disappointment”. She told the PA news agency:
It is with great sadness that listening to Mr Cummings it emerges that our initial thoughts and the evidence that was around us was right – that there was no shield around care homes, there was no thought on the impact on the vulnerable people that we care for.
People were being discharged out of hospital into our services to save the NHS and put not only the people discharged, their lives, were put at risk, but the people who were in our services at risk.
My reaction is great disappointment that the sector was lied to from the outset – we were lied to about any plan, it is clear there was no plan; we were lied to about the protective shield when we know there was no protective shield and it is disappointing to note that the testing that we were promised never took place.
Criticism
Shadow social care minister Liz Kendall said:
Mr Cummings’ comments have revealed what we knew all along – that the Government’s ‘protective shield’ around care homes during this pandemic did not exist.
Over 30,000 care home residents have died of coronavirus during this pandemic – 25,000 elderly people were discharged from hospitals to care homes without any tests whatsoever, and frontline care workers were left without PPE.
The Government was much too slow to act to protect residents and staff. As we emerge from this pandemic ministers must put in place a plan to transform social care and ensure that care homes never again face a crisis of this scale.
Labour MP Barbara Keeley, a member of the committee questioning Cummings, tweeted:
The evidence from Dominic Cummings today was clear – at the start of this pandemic, residents in care homes were sacrificed in order to free up beds in hospitals.
@MattHancock must come explain why the promise that patients would be tested before discharge wasn’t kept.
Downing Street defended its handling of care homes as Cummings continued to give evidence. The prime minister’s official spokesperson said:
With regard to care homes, we’ve always been guided by the latest advice at that time and we’ve taken a number of steps to protect care home residents and those being discharged from hospitals into care homes.
Much, much more
Cummings said a lot more in his interview. At one point he was asked to confirm if he heard Johnson say he”would rather see the bodies pile high than order another lockdown”. Cummings answered that he did, and that out of the different versions of the quote the BBC one was correct.
People online had several comments about Cummings’ lengthy interview:
Yet again either silent on or praising Rishi Sunak while attacking Matt Hancock at every opportunity. What possible motive could Dominic Cummings have, I wonder.
— The Poisonous Euros Atmosphere Fan (@DawnHFoster) May 26, 2021
Some commented on Cummings revealing he had an almost exclusive relationship with BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg:
If the ‘source’ for this was Cummings and Cummings alone Laura Kuenssberg should resign as BBC politics editor.
This isn’t journalism, it’s spin. pic.twitter.com/gGrcdSK2N7
— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) May 26, 2021
Others noted that Keir Starmer may now struggle to criticise Johnson and the government given his support for them throughout 2020:
Dominic Cummings: The problem wasn't bad communication, it was bad policy.
It's what we've been saying at @novaramedia since March. It's a shame @Keir_Starmer relegated his role to providing comms advice.
— Michael Walker (@michaeljswalker) May 26, 2021
Others highlighted the media’s handling of the government in 2020:
If what Cummings says is true, people at the top of government were saying 'there's no plan, we're absolutely fucked' at the same time as people meant to scrutinise them were saying 'wow the government is amazing, ignore the hipster analysis'
— Jon Stone (@joncstone) May 26, 2021
This exchange sums up an attitude which was rampant within the British media at the time – when, as Dominic Cummings points out, top civil servants were declaring "We are absolutely fucked" – and allowed the government to get away with tens of thousands of avoidable deaths. pic.twitter.com/isEuxDAazp
— Owen Jones (@owenjonesjourno) May 26, 2021
