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Matt Hancock criticised the “tone” of Labour MP Rosena Allin-Khan, a serving A&E doctor, when she questioned the UK’s strategy in tackling coronavirus on Tuesday.
Allin-Khan, the shadow mental health minister, told the Commons today the government’s testing strategy had “cost lives”.
“Frontline workers like me have had to watch families break into pieces as we deliver the very worst of news to them, that the ones they love most in this world have died,” she said.
“The testing strategy has been non-existent. Community testing was scrapped, mass testing was slow to roll out and testing figures are now being manipulated.”
Allin-Khan, the MP for Tooting, who has been working in a hospital in her constituency during the coronavirus outbreak, added: “Many frontline workers feel that the government’s lack of testing has cost lives and is responsible for many families being unnecessarily torn apart in grief.”
Hancock told Allin-Khan she “might do well to take a leaf out of the shadow secretary of state’s book in terms of tone”.
“I’m afraid what she said is not true. There’s been a rapid acceleration in testing over the last few months including getting to 100,000 tests a day,” he added.
The health secretary had earlier welcomed the “responsible and reasonable” manner in which Jon Ashwoth, the shadow health secretary, had asked questions.
Allin-Khan later tweeted: “I will not ‘watch my tone’ when dozens of NHS and care staff are dying unnecessarily. Families are being torn apart.”
When she had risen to speak, Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle had thanked her “for what you and all your staff do in the NHS saving lives”.
With more than 29,710 confirmed coronavirus deaths, the UK now has the highest number of fatalities in Europe, having overtaking Italy.
And more than a fifth of all coronavirus-related deaths in England and Wales up to April 24 happened in care homes, data published today revealed.