Man in Yeovil Hospital with Covid had DNA taken without consent

Mrs Brown said: “I fully appreciated it was a national study, but the benefit that swung the balance of him doing it was that he would potentially benefit.

“The suggestion was that he could potentially find out about any genetic factor that would predispose him more to being affected by Covid.”

Mr Brown, from Sturminster Newton in Dorset, then accessed his medical records and found out this was not the case.

He told the BBC: “My wife said she was asked to give consent over the phone and that giving consent would be a direct benefit to me and that when the paperwork arrived it was not the case.”

Mr Brown subsequently withdrew from the study months later after being discharged home. The DNA sample was destroyed.

However, to maintain the integrity of the study, his genomic sequence was kept in an anonymous form.

Mr Brown said: “One of the very highest people in the trust wrote me an email which said he appreciated that the form said that this information sheet should be read out [to the patient], but for practical purposes that didn’t happen.”