MATT HANCOCK was asked to apologise today by the son of a doctor who died with coronavirus after warning the government about a lack of personal protective equipment (PPE).

The Health Secretary was confronted during a live phone-in on LBC by 18-year-old Intisar Chowdhury, the son of Dr Abdul Mabud Chowdhury, who died earlier this month.

Dr Chowdhury, who was 53, had written a Facebook post just five days before he was admitted to hospital asking Prime Minister Boris Johnson to urgently provide every NHS worker with PPE. He died two weeks after making the plea.

Referring to the fact that more than 100 NHS staff have died with the virus, Mr Chowdhury asked Mr Hancock if he regretted not taking his dad’s concerns seriously.

Mr Hancock replied that he was “really sorry” about Dr Chowdhury’s death. He said policies had been changed as more is learned about coronavirus, giving the example of changing guidance on funeral attendance after 13-year-old Ismail Mohamed Abdulwahab was buried without his family there.

Mr Hancock argued that thousands of people were “doing everything they can” to solve issues with PPE despite complicated logistical problems.

Mr Chowdhury asked him to acknowledge that mistakes had been made. He said: “The public is not expecting the government to handle this perfectly, we’re just expecting progression.

“We just want you to openly acknowledge that there have been mistakes in handling the virus, especially to me and to so many families that have really lost loved ones as a result of this virus and probably as a result of the government not handling it seriously enough.

“Openly acknowledging your mistake is not an admission of guilt, it is genuinely just making you seem more human.”

Mr Hancock ducked the plea, saying that he thought it is “very important that we’re constantly learning about how to do these things better.”

A minute’s silence was held outside Homerton hospital in London, where Dr Chowdhury worked and where two other workers also died, to mark International Workers’ Memorial Day and remember those who died while battling coronavirus.

A survey from Prospect union published yesterday found that women are still being overlooked regarding PPE.

About twice as many women as men polled said that PPE, including face masks, safety goggle and overalls, did not fit them properly.

Senior deputy general secretary of Prospect Sue Ferns said: “This is a perennial problem, but for it to be persisting in the middle of the biggest acute health crisis in generations is appalling.”