We need a medical professional

in charge of NHS – not politicians

It’s all coming out now – thanks to 100,000 leaked WhatsApp exchanges, showing that the then Health Minister, Matt Hancock, rejected official guidance from Prof. Sir Chris Witty (the Government’s own Chief Medical Officer), to test all patients going into English care homes for Covid-19. With horrific consequences.

Which poses the question, who had time to send all those messages?  My back-of-an-envelope calculation shows these must have taken thousands of expensive Ministerial hours to compose – what was Hancock doing with that time (er… carrying on an affair?).

No doubt these revelations will mean the official coronavirus inquiry will be minutely scrutinised;  I for one would like to know just what Ministers do with their time when they should be doing their job.

Somehow, instead of trained health professionals running our health service, we have ended up with career politicians.    For the record, since 1999 these political  Ministers in charge have been:  Alan Milburn, John Reid, Patricia Hewitt, Alan Johnson, Andy Burnham, Andrew Lansley, Jeremy Hunt, Matt Hancvosk, Sajid Javid,  Steve Barclay, Therese Coffey, and Barclay again; 12 changes of Minister.

How on earth can anyone be expected to run such an enormous and important service as the NHS if you are in post for 2 years or less? And how can a politician parachuted into this top job be expected to grasp the complexities of today’s healthcare overnight?

Currently, Hancock is fighting claims that whilst serving as Health Secretary, he rejected advice to give coronavirus tests to all residents going into English care homes,

His spokesman said a report claiming he rejected clinical advice on care home testing was “flat wrong” because he was told it was “not currently possible” to carry out the tests.

The aide alleged the messages leaked by journalist Isabel Oakeshott, who was handed them by Mr. Hancock while she worked on his “Pandemic Diaries” memoir, have been “spun to fit an anti-lockdown agenda”.

Which begs the question, when Oakeshott was writing a book, which presumably would benefit Hancock’s (and her) income, surely she should not have been allowed. access to government papers?

It’s all developing into a horrendous nightmare and only goes to show that politicians can’t be expected to run a nation’s health service if they treat supposedly secret documents in such a cavalier fashion.  Imagine the scandal if a Consultant used 100,000 patient records to help a ghostwriter write their autobiography.

At Prime Minister’s Questions, Sir Keir Starmer said  “Families across the country will look at this, and the sight of politicians writing books portraying them as heroes will be an insulting and ghoulish spectacle for them.”