Health officials ‘ignored evidence of non-Covid deaths’ during lockdown

The Covid inquiry is being urged to investigate if health officials dismissed evidence of collateral deaths during lockdown after a whistleblower claimed that pathologists’ concerns were shut down.

As the inquiry prepares to hold its first full public hearing this week, Prof Sebastian Lucas, who worked as a consultant pathologist at St Thomas’ Hospital in London, claimed that PHE was not interested in what he described as “collateral deaths”.

Prof Lucas wrote to Prof Kevin Fenton, the director of PHE London, on behalf of the London Inner South Jurisdiction Pathology Advisory Group. 

He approached the agency in January 2021 as the UK entered its third lockdown, warning that collateral deaths as a result of the pandemic had not been recorded properly.

The group, which was headed up by a coroner, had identified several deaths that would not have happened had the NHS been functioning as normal. This included people who did not want to bother the doctor or who took their own lives because of lockdowns.

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Source: The Telegraph, 10 June 2023