'Appalled and sickened': Fury as Whatsapps 'show Matt Hancock rejected Covid testing advice'

Families of care home residents who died from Covid today claimed they were appalled but not surprised at bombshell claims that Matt Hancock rejected advice to test people entering care homes. Nearly 18,000 of these occurred between mid-April and mid-August, before guidance was published stating that all of those going into homes from the community should be tested KEY CLAIMS OF THE LOCKDOWN FILES INVESTIGATION A fresh cache of 100,000 text and WhatsApp messages leaked to the Daily Telegraph by the ex-journalist who ghost-wrote Hancock’s pandemic diaries claimed: Matt Hancock rejected the Chief Medical Officer’s call to test all residents going into English care homes for Covid A minister in Mr Hancock's department said restrictions on visitors to care homes were ‘inhumane’ but residents remained isolated many months on Mr Hancock’s adviser arranged for a personal test to be couriered for Jacob Rees-Mogg’s child at a time of national shortage Mr Hancock told former chancellor George Osborne, then-editor of the Evening Standard, 'I WANT TO HIT MY TARGET!' The leaked texts also include exchanges between the former Health Secretary and then Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who revealed he was going 'quietly crackers' about the UK's shortage of test kits In one message on April 14, Mr Hancock said Sir Chris had finished a review and recommended 'testing of all going into care homes, and segregation whilst awaiting result'. Mr Hancock last night delivered a speech at The NFT Gallery in Mayfair, London, during a fundraising event for CARE International UK's humanitarian appeal for Ukraine The WhatsApp leaks also lay bare divisions between Mr Hancock and social care minister Helen Whately, who said she was concerned about the Government's policy of discharging NHS patients into care homes to free up capacity Matt Hancock and Boris Johnson, then Health Secretary and Prime Minister, pictured during a visit to Bassetlaw District General Hospital on November 22, 2019 The leaked texts also include exchanges between the former Health Secretary and then Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who revealed he was going 'quietly crackers' about the UK's shortage of test kits A crisis in testing and PPE turned care homes into 'warzones' in late March 2020, as the nation was plunged into lockdown. Pictured: A woman visiting her grandmother in isolation during the pandemic The Government introduced mandatory testing for people going into care homes from hospital, but not from the community Isabel Oakeshott, who has described lockdowns as an 'unmitigated disaster', said she was releasing the messages because it would take 'many years' before the end of the official Covid inquiry, which she claimed could be a 'colossal whitewash' During Prime Minister's Questions today, Sir Keir told the Commons: 'We don't know the truth of what happened yet.