People were sent back to care homes without being tested for Covid-19 and promises to shield residents were "complete nonsense, Dominic Cummings has said.
The ex-aide rubbished the Government rhetoric that a protective shield had been placed around care homes and blamed Matt Hancock for failure to prevent residents returning from hospital with the virus.
Care homes were devastated by Covid in the early stages of the pandemic, where the virus caused more than 20,000 in England and Wales between March and June.
Mr Cummings, who repeatedly told MPs that the Health Secretary should have been fired, sought to blame him for infected patients returning to care homes.
In an explosive committee hearing, he said: "Hancock told us in the Cabinet room that people were going to be tested in care homes.
"What the hell happened?
“We were told categorically in March that people would be tested before they went back to care homes.
"We only subsequently found out that that hadn’t happened.
"The government rhetoric was ‘we put a shield around care homes, blah blah blah’ - that was complete nonsense.
"Quite the opposite of putting a shield round them, we sent people with Covid back to the care homes.”
Shadow Social Care Minister Liz Kendall said: “Mr Cummings’ comments have revealed what we knew all along – that the Government’s ‘protective shield’ around care homes during this pandemic did not exist.
“Over 30,000 care home residents have died of coronavirus during this pandemic. 25,000 elderly people were discharged from hospitals to care homes without any tests whatsoever, and frontline care workers were left without PPE.
“The Government was much too slow to act to protect residents and staff. As we emerge from this pandemic Ministers must put in place a plan to transform social care and ensure that care homes never again face a crisis of this scale.”
Mr Cummings repeatedly tore into Mr Hancock during his evidence session, saying he "should have been fired for at least 15, 20 things including lying to everybody on multiple occasions in meeting after meeting in the cabinet room and publicly".
He also accused the Health Secretary of "criminal, disgraceful behaviour" by interfering with the NHS test and trace system, adding that he urged Boris Johnson to fire him over it.
He claimed he had evidence to back up his claims, which were made under parliamentary privilege.
Downing Street defended its handling of care homes.
The Prime Minister's official spokesman said: "With regard to care homes, we've always been guided by the latest advice at that time and we've taken a number of steps to protect care home residents and those being discharged from hospitals into care homes."
The spokesman also said the PM had confidence in Mr Hancock - but did not deny allegations he had considered sacking him last year.
