Robert Buckland admits government prioritised NHS over care homes at start of coronavirus outbreak

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The Justice Secretary today admitted the Government had prioritised the NHS over care homes at the start of the coronavirus outbreak.

Robert Buckland’s comments are the strongest admission yet from a government minister that mistakes had been made earlier on in the crisis.

Asked on Sky News if the government's policy was "to focus on the NHS first and foremost", he responded: "That’s right".

He added: “Clearly there were huge issues and we’ve seen a great tragedy in our care homes which is a matter of huge regret.”

Mr Buckland also told presenter Kay Burley there had been far too many cases of “infection and death” in care homes, adding: "I think every country in the world will look back and say there were things we could have done differently."

It comes after Pensions Secretary Thérèse Coffey appeared to suggest scientific advice was to blame for perceived mistakes.

Work and pensions secretary Therese Coffey
PA

Ms Coffey said yesterday: “If the science was wrong, advice at the time was wrong - I’m not surprised if people will then think we then made a wrong decision.”

However, Mr Buckland took a more conciliatory tone this morning, adding: "Now is not time to blame people. I think that would be wholly counterproductive.

"We have got to work together, not just with the care home sector but with our scientists, all the people who advise Government, and together come to sensible solutions."

Mr Buckland was also asked about recent figures which showed 40 per cent of Covid-19 deaths were in care homes and what mistakes the government made.

He said: “We rightly emphasised the importance of making sure that our NHS services and our hospitals were places that could continue to admit patients and wouldn’t be incubators of the disease. We achieved that. We protected our NHS.”

Asked if it was to the detriment of care homes he replied: “We needed to make a choice about testing and we did decide to focus upon the NHS.”

He also said it was right and “absolutely essential” that the NHS had been put first and foremost at the start of the outbreak.

It comes as Boris Johnson was expected to be grilled by Sir Keir Starmer over care homes during their third clash at Prime Minister’s Questions today.

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