Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 04 November 2020
I, too, thank all those who work in care and in our care homes. The clapping might have ceased, but they should be in no doubt that we appreciate the great value that they bring to us all.
Calls for public inquiries are not made lightly, and I appreciate that each and every party in the chamber agrees that there should be a public inquiry. Colleagues who have spoken have outlined their differing views on when such an inquiry should take place. I make it clear that, if the Conservatives had brought this motion to the chamber earlier in the pandemic, I would have resolutely opposed it. However, we now know that 2,048 people have died from Covid in Scotland’s care homes, that 44 per cent of the total deaths from Covid have occurred there and that families across Scotland are grieving. With loss of life on that scale in that specific setting, the case for a separate public inquiry on the issue is clear.
I appreciate that the Government’s amendment seeks an inquiry into all aspects of the response to the pandemic. I do, too, but including care homes in that essential endeavour—an inquiry of such scope—would lead to greater delay. I am gravely concerned for those people from whom we need to hear, who must be given every opportunity to ensure that we can hear from them. If we delay, there is no guarantee that we will have learned all the lessons. We may continue to put lives at risk due to a lack of complete understanding of what happened.
As we know, public inquiries investigate issues of serious public concern. They seek to prevent a recurrence of events that we would always wish to avoid. They need effective information gathering and management, and we need to know now that the necessary information is stored securely. There will be a requirement to ask for and gather evidence, to analyse documents and testimonies and to establish roles and responsibilities and the terms of reference. That must, of course, involve consulting residents and their families, bereaved families and the people who are working to look after them.
All of that will take time. Elderly spouses or partners and the families of people who have lost their lives may not be able to wait, nor should they be asked to. Our shared aim is to save lives and protect people, and the sooner that we understand all the contributory factors to the truly harrowing death toll in our care homes, the better. I believe that an inquiry is an important step to take now to ensure that we are doing all that we need to do in order to prevent avoidable deaths among our oldest citizens.
I welcome the fact that the Scottish Government commissioned Public Health Scotland to carry out work to identify and report on discharges from NHS hospitals to care homes during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, and I welcome the care homes review. As has been said, the PHS report states that,
“after accounting for care home size and other care home characteristics, the estimated risk of”
hospital discharge may reduce and
“is not statistically significant”,
but that will provide no comfort to people who have lost loved ones. It also raises questions about the mitigations that are being put in place in larger care homes.
We now understand what is appropriate personal protective equipment in specific settings, why testing must include asymptomatic people and why masks are important, but do we understand all the interlinking factors that have led to the devastating loss of life in our care homes? I do not believe that we do, and we need to learn them now. The opportunity to do so should not be delayed.
16:28