Piers Morgan blasts minister over care home death toll calling it a ‘scandal of epic proportions’

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The GMB host tore into Care Minister Helen Whateley and accused her of not knowing the real number of deaths in care homes.

The Care Home Minister refused to accept the figures suggested

In a car crash interview, Ms Whateley claimed the latest figures for care home deaths were 1043, but admitted it’s “probably more”.

Demanding answers, Mr Morgan said: “So how many do you think have died in care homes?

“You are the care Minister, how many more have died than the Government figures?”

The Tory MP said she could publish more accurate figures next week, only to be shouted down by the furious TV host.

He said: “I don’t want to wait a week, we had this conversation last week and you didn’t know then either.

“The FT says it’s over 41,000.”

Ms Whately dismissed the figure as one she “didn’t recognise”, and warned against data that “hasn’t been verified”.

Laying into the senior Minister, Mr Morgan said: “You come back on this programme after what many people thought was a car crash interview, at what point do you come back and have an answer?

“There is a very good reason to believe that it’s over 41,000 people, including thousands and thousands in care homes, and that is your job to know this stuff.

“I find it incredibly insulting that the care minister has no idea how many people are dying in our car homes.

“These are elderly and vulnerable people, dying of Covid-19, and you are not taking their deaths seriously enough.

“They have an 11 times death toll, and the reason that matters minister is if their figures are right, then the UK has the worst death toll in the world, after America and is literally neck and neck with America which would be a scandal of epic proportions.”

The minister dismissed his claims, and explained she would only go on verified data.

She said: “That’s an incredibly unreasonable accusation, I take every single death extremely seriously.

“We are working to make sure the figures we have don’t duplicate so we can publish data next week.

“It is really important that we share accurate data.”