Health Secretary Matt Hancock has been criticised after he told a Labour MP to watch her “tone” when she questioned the government’s handling of the pandemic.

Dr Rosena Allin-Khan, who is also a serving A&E doctor, said the government’s coronavirus testing strategy had “cost lives” and called on the health secretary to commit to a “minimum of 100,000 tests each day going forward”.

During health questions in the Commons, Mr Hancock dismissed her allegations and said she “might do well to take a leaf out of the shadow secretary of state’s book in terms of tone”.

Dr Allin-Khan later tweeted she would “not watch my tone when dozens of NHS and care staff are dying unnecessarily”.

She had told MPs: “Frontline workers like me have had to watch families break into pieces as we deliver the very worst of news to them, that the ones they love most in this world have died.

“The testing strategy has been non-existent. Community testing was scrapped, mass testing was slow to roll out, and testing figures are now being manipulated.”

She continued: “And does the secretary of state acknowledge that many frontline workers feel that the government’s lack of testing has cost lives and is responsible for many families being unnecessarily torn apart in grief?”

Mr Hancock said Dr Allin-Khan’s accusations were “not true” and that there had been a “rapid acceleration is testing… including getting to 100,000 tests a day”.

A number of high profile figures have defended Dr Allin-Khan on Twitter following the exchange, including Nigella Lawson, Piers Morgan and Diane Abbott.

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