Matt Hancock was left looking sheepish on Good Morning Britain today as he was confronted by an ICU nurse who had earlier asked how he could "look NHS staff in the face.
The Health Secretary appeared on GMB today as he addressed whether there would be a national lockdown, the confusion regarding schools and on ICU wards struggling over understaffing.
During the interview, Susanna Reid pointed out ICU nurse Dave Carr's remarks that hospitals are "beyond breaking point".
"It's absolutely harrowing, it's breaking us," he had said, warning that medics are preparing to send sick patients away.
"It's already worse than it was in the first wave," he said. "The worry is extreme."
Hancock was shown a clip of what Dave would ask him if he was able to, which saw the nurse respond: "How he can seriously look any health worker in the face and tell us that he is stewarding the NHS and managing this pandemic properly?
"We're doing this understaffed, underpaid - I mean, the insult we got earlier on in the year with no pay raise for what we did in Covid really hurt us. But I just think that they need to be honest, the Government needs to be honest - they're not handling the pandemic well and the impact that's having on us and the NHS is ferocious.
"I mean, I'm an old boy and I've got a lot of resilience but I'm seeing young people doing stuff that they shouldn't be doing. We shouldn't be putting the amount of people in body bags that we're going to have to do because of the way this pandemic is being handled.
"I really think you guys need to pin the politicians about the mismanagement of the pandemic and the impact that's had on an already rundown NHS."
Fumbling, Hancock awkwardly replied: "Well, the staff across the NHS have done a great job... I'm very pleased that earlier in the year that we were able to give a significant pay rise to nurses across the board."
Susanna wryly remarked that Dave had certainly not described the pay rise as "significant" before asking him about the staff shortages.
"Over the last year we've seen an increase in the amount of nurses across the NHS," he insisted. "I know that a lot people thought that we would lose nurses because of the pandemic."
Susanna debated his response, pointing out that they were still 40,000 short, to which Hancock insisted that that was "not quite right".
Piers also grilled Hancock on why the government is waiting to do a national lockdown.
"Why are you waiting? I'm sorry, but this reminds me of what happened in March," Piers replied. "Surely we know that the only truly effective blunt instrument is to do a lockdown."
"It's not just about the measures, it's about how everybody responds," Hancock responded. "We are prepared to move quickly and take whatever action is possible."
*Good Morning Britain airs weekdays at 6am on ITV
