The beloved husband of Kate Garraway, Derek Draper, passed away a year ago today after a battle with covid-19.
The former lobbyist from Chorley died on January 4 2024 after suffering with severe health complications after contracting coronavirus in March 2020. During his battle, Derek’s condition worsened in December 2023, before he went into cardiac arrest and died with family by his side.
A year after the tragedy, Kate quizzed Health Secretary Wes Streeting on Labour’s plans for a new ‘National Care Service’, which may not be implemented until 2028. The Good Morning Britain presenter admitted Derek’s death led to “unpayable debt” and fears for families in similar situations.
Kate is not shy of addressing these issues, as the 57-year-old has documented her family’s ordeal to highlight the difficulties faced by so many across the country, as well as the devastating effects of long Covid. The mum-of-two previously opened up about her husband’s final, poignant conversation with their two children before he was rushed to hospital one last time, the Mirror reports.
She told how, while sitting in the ambulance with an oxygen mask, Derek was able to speak to his family, expressing one final selfless request. According to Kate, proud dad Derek told Darcey, 18, and 14-year-old Billy: “You’re the best children anyone could ask for. Look after mum, be good for her.” This would be the last time Derek saw his two children before going into a coma.
Kate Garraway and her late husband Derek Draper with their children
(Image: Kate Garraway Instagram)
In an interview with Good Morning Britain last February, Kate praised her teenage children for the ‘beautiful’ way they handled their dying dad’s last days. Kate recalled: “It was one of those stop-the-clock moments, where you want the world to stop. It swamps you. We now have 24 hours, [which] turned out to be more of a month, of fighting on and fighting on, following the prognosis that he won’t make it through. For the children, when they heard he won’t make it through, they’ve heard it so many times.
She continued: “They were so beautiful, the children, about that. They individually had time with him on his own, and Darcey said, ‘If dad, you can’t do this, it’s okay. Don’t worry about us’. And I had similar conversations, a chance to hold his hand and smell his skin and hold him all the way through, and some people don’t get that.
“It’s a comfort to know he’s free from pain. We have to pick ourselves up and go on, and that’s what Derek did, and that’s what we will do.” Kate today confronted West Streeting about the huge challenge of “dealing with the funding of care”.
Kate noted her fortunate state on having a well-paid job, but the care has still led to “excessive unpayable debt”. Expressing her concerns on today’s Good Morning Britain, Kate told Mr Streeting: “I’m going to be honest.
“In my mind, I’m thinking about the situation with Derek. It actually happens to be the anniversary of his death – one-year anniversary of his death – today, which is a day only relevant to me, but over the last few weeks, the family and I have been talking about the challenges we faced this time last year.
“And one of the overriding ones until he went back into intensive care before he passed away, was dealing with the funding of care. At the time of his death, there were two appeals that hadn’t been heard for funding. It kept on getting pushed back and pushed back. In the meantime, and I’m lucky I’ve got an incredible job which is well-paid, I was having to fund the situation. Now I’ve got excessive unpayable debt because of it, and if I’m in that position, what else are people going to be? People can’t afford four more years of this?”
A National Care Service was promised in the Labour Party manifesto, but major reforms may not be delivered until 2028, which may be too late for some families already struggling.
Outlining his plans for the service, the Health Secretary explained: “I was going to say, Kate, I think that’s why your story connected with so many people. It’s not just that you’re a familiar face on people’s screens and your viewers feel they’ve got a relationship with you as a presenter, it’s also because your experience with Derek and your family’s experience resonates with so many people across the country who are struggling with the same costs or the same unmet needs or similar experiences.
“And I think one of the reasons why we’ve ended always back into this sort of the short-termist cycle of failure, is whenever we talk about social care, there are costs involved, and that sort of makes people run for the hills and want to stick their head in the sand in politics, because sometimes those numbers can be scary.”
He added: “And one of the reasons I genuinely think, even with the majority of the size that we’ve got, it’s a good thing to try and build cross-party consensus is I want to come up with a plan that means whoever’s in government after the next general election or the one after that, whether it’s a Labour government or a Conservative government or a coalition or whoever that, broadly speaking, we keep the same direction of travel on social care in the way that we have with the NHS since 1948.”
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