City pensioners association leader accuses Prime Minster of sacrificing elderly people during pandemic

Patrick Brooks is chairman of the Peterborough Pensioners Association and was incensed by Boris Johnson’s remarks during an interview last week in which he commented: “We discovered too many care homes didn’t really follow the procedures in the way that they could have, but we’re learning lessons the whole time.”

He has been accused of trying to “shift the blame” of his government’s early failings in co-ordinating the Covid-19 response, prompting outrage from care providers, but ministers rallied round claiming his comments have been misunderstood, meaning that only some homes were at fault.

At Prime Minister’s Questions last week, Mr Johnson praised the good job done by the care sector, but stopped short of apologising for his earlier comments.

Mr Brooks has written to express his backing for the care homes, accusing the government of sacrificing the elderly population in the community and care homes through lack of PPE for care staff.

He said the same government, “had no policy of track and trace, and emptied beds in hospitals and demanded they be accommodated in homes without testing for the virus.”

He went on: “More than 22,000 deaths have been recorded, and yet we had the tissue of lies that a ‘ring of protection’ was surrounding care homes to protect the residents and care staff from an early stage.

“The government is preparing it’s defence by trying to shift blame onto everyone else - be it hospital or care staff or the medical or scientific advice it receives.

“It’s abject failure to save lives and to sacrifice elderly people, means we have the highest death rate in Europe, only exceeded by Brazil and USA in the rest of the world.”

He said it was now the policy of the Peterborough Pensioners Association to end the scandal and ensure social care is financed to the same level as the NHS through general taxation so that the population receives cradle to the grave care free at the point of need.

The Prime Minster has pledge to hold an independent inquiry into the handling of the pandemic, but not at this point in time as he saw it as inapporoprate.

But Mr Brooks said: “We do not require another enquiry to tell us that integration is needed only to then kick it into the long grass and proceed to do nothing.

“The death of 22.000 people in care homes demand action now.”

Chairman of the Cambridgeshire Care Providers Alliance, Graham Green, told the Peterborough Telegraph last week that the Prime Minister was starting to “point fingers” to deflect blame away from his government for mishandlings early on when testing was paused, instead he claims Mr Johnson is now saying it was only failings in implementation of his strategy.

Mr Green said: “You don’t go into care for the money, so it must be because you want to help people. Those working in care homes are even more used to coping with death, but when it happens like this, on this scale, and you are being blamed for it, that is very difficult.”

Mr Johnson has announced the NHS in England will get an extra £3bn in funding to prepare for a possible second wave of coronavirus.

It will also help ease winter pressures combined with flu virus and the possibility that Covid may be more virulent in winter.

The money will allow the NHS to continue using private hospital capacity and the temporary Nightingale hospitals until March, enabling the NHS to carry out routine treatments too after their suspension due to lockdown was relaxed.