Chief nurse Ruth May confirms she was dropped from Number 10 briefing amid Dominic Cummings row
England’s chief nursing officer has actually validated she was “dropped” from among Downing Street’s day-to-day coronavirus instructions in the middle of debate over Dominic Cummings’s lockdown journeys.
Ruth May informed MPs she was axed from the line-up for the Number 10 briefing on 1 June regardless of having actually currently gotten ready for her look.
It had actually formerly been reported that the decision was required to axe Ms May after she declined to openly back Mr Cummings
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At the time, the prime minister’s chief advisor was under big pressure to stop his role after being implicated of flouting the UK’s COVID-19 lockdown guidelines.
Ms May was inquired about the report throughout her look prior to your house of Commons’ Public Accounts Committee on Monday.
“It is indeed true that I was dropped from a briefing, but that happens to many of my colleagues as well,” she informed MPs.
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“That is a regular occurrence.”
However Ms May stated she didn’t understand why she was dropped from journalism briefing.
Continued whether she had actually been asked, throughout her preparations for the briefing, to safeguard Boris Johnson’s senior advisor, Ms May responded: “As in at all press instructions, we discuss a great deal of these preparation concerns.
” And yes, obviously, I was inquired about lockdown and guidelines to lockdown, yes.”
Asked what her views were, at the time, of lockdown and Mr Cummings’s actions, she stated: “I think that, in my viewpoint, the guidelines were clear and they are there for everybody’s safety and they used to all of us.”
” They definitely use to everybody, including me,” Ms May added.
However, questioned on whether her views were the factor she was dropped from the 1 June briefing, England’s chief nurse responded: “I do not understand why I was dropped from the briefing, I hesitate.
“You’d have to ask other people for that.”
She added: “People are stepped up and stepped down at short notice.”
Ms May’s prepared look on 1 June came quickly after Teacher Jonathan Van-Tam, England’s deputy chief medical officer, utilized a Downing Street briefing to worry the coronavirus lockdown guidelines were “clear” and “apply to all”.
In a report by the Independent, a “senior NHS source” was estimated as explaining how Ms May was asked by a Number 10 advisor how she would address a concern about Mr Cummings.
“She refused to play along and told them she would answer the same way as Jonathan Van-Tam,” the source was estimated as stating.
“She was dropped immediately from the press briefing.”
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Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who appeared at the 1 June briefing for which Ms May was missing, disregarded a concern about the matter in your house of Commons in the future Monday.
Labour’s shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth stated: “It is scandalous that the nation’s most senior nurse was silenced at the height of the pandemic because she wasn’t prepared to parrot Downing Street spin about Dominic Cummings’s blatant rule breaking.”
Daily press conference were a crucial function of the federal government’s action to the coronavirus pandemic for a variety of weeks.
On 2 June, Number 10 revealed it was ditching instructions at weekends due to “significantly lower” seeing figures.
On 23 June, 3 months after the UK went into lockdown, Downing Street ditched the day-to-day instructions completely in favour of ad-hoc looks by ministers.
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