Boris Johnson reveals 312 NHS and social care workers have now died of coronavirus
- Boris Johnson revealed latest coronavirus death toll for NHS and care workers
- Mr Johnson told the Commons 181 health service and 131 care staff had died
- He said at PMQs the thoughts of the whole House were with families and friends
- Here’s how to help people impacted by Covid-19
The death toll among NHS staff has hit 181 and among care workers it is 131, Boris Johnson revealed today.
Mr Johnson gave the latest grim figures as he took PMQs in the House of Commons this afternoon.
He said the deaths had ‘sadly been reported involving Covid-19‘.
‘I know the thoughts of the whole House are with their families and friends,’ he said.
Mr Johnson gave the latest grim figures as he took PMQs in the House of Commons this afternoon
Mr Johnson was taking the last PMQs before the Commons goes into recess for nearly a fortnight – despite the crisis engulfing the country
The details emerged as Mr Johnson engaged in bruising clashes with Labour’s Keir Starmer over the handling of the crisis in care homes.
Justice Secretary Robert Buckland sparked fury earlier by admitting that ministers ‘chose’ to protect the NHS over care homes because there was not enough coronavirus testing capacity.
Mr Buckland gave the clearest statement yet that a decision was made to prioritise the health service when the outbreak was at its most ferocious.
More than 11,000 people are now believed to have died in care homes since the disease started running rampant, around a quarter of the UK’s total toll. The government has been heavily criticised for sending patients back to homes from hospitals without tests, and not putting routine screening in place for staff and residents.
Mr Buckland fuelled the row this morning by conceding the government had to make a ‘choice’ about where to deploy testing capacity – which was languishing at a few thousand a day in early March, although it has now been ramped up to over 100,000.
‘I think we needed to make a choice about testing and we did decide to focus upon the NHS,’ he told Sky News. ‘The issue with care homes is that we’ve got many thousands of different providers, different settings, there have been lots of examples of care homes that have mercifully stayed infection free, but sadly far too many cases of infection and then death.’
Shadow care minister Liz Kendall said the remarks amounted to a concession that ‘ministers did not give care homes the protection they needed at the start of this pandemic’.
The details emerged as Mr Johnson engaged in bruising clashes with Labour’s Keir Starmer (pictured) over the handling of the crisis in care homes
Mr Buckland fuelled the row this morning by conceding the government had to make a ‘choice’ about where to deploy testing capacity – which was languishing at a few thousand a day in early March, although it has now been ramped up to over 100,000
‘Social care and the NHS are both equally important in the fight against this virus and are inextricably linked. One cannot be prioritised above the other,’ she said.
Care England chief Martin Green said it was a ‘significant’ statement from Mr Buckland and he hoped the government will ‘learn lessons’.
The spat came after Dame Angela McLean, chief science adviser at the Ministry of Defence, highlighted the role capacity had played in key decisions at the daily media briefing last night.
Dame Angela said the advice given to ministers to abandon efforts to contact trade individual cases, which happened on March 12, ‘took account of the testing that was available’.
‘With the testing we had the right thing to do was to focus it on people who were really sick in hospital… it was the right thing to do at the time,’ she said.
She said the ‘scientific advice would be that you need to have a rapid and reliable testing system’. Asked if that was now true, Dame Angela replied: ‘I think it is getting better.’