Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 04 November 2020
As I make progress through my speech, I shall engage with the cabinet secretary on the delays and the publishing of guidance that was removed from the Government website.
We cannot begin to imagine the anguish that has been experienced by the families who have lost loved ones in care homes. The Scottish Government knew that older people were vulnerable, but it threw a match on a petrol-soaked problem, with guidance stating that elderly patients could be discharged from hospital before their test results came back, risking the introduction of yet more infected patients into care homes.
When she was questioned, the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport admitted that she had “not seen absolutely yet” guidance before it was revealed that that guidance had been published in error and removed from the Scottish Government’s website. Families have been let down, and—as my colleague Donald Cameron pointed out—that is nothing short of a scandal.
It is upsetting to know that constituents of mine were potentially put in danger by the Government’s actions, but the Government’s failure to take proper action to investigate why that happened really rubs salt in the wound. Furthermore, the Scottish Government report was delayed, and the First Minister has still not answered the question about when she knew that Covid-positive discharges to care homes were happening. Why was that allowed to happen? Families across Scotland have been left speechless, and now, during these difficult times, they are grieving without knowledge of the full picture. The Scottish Conservatives will fight to ensure that they get those answers.
We need to see more data on what has happened over the past eight months. We know that 3,000 patients were transferred without a test and that 113 Covid-positive patients were knowingly sent from hospitals to care homes across Scotland. Between 1 March and 31 May 2020, 137 people were discharged from Borders hospitals into 20 of the 26 care homes across the Borders. We do not know, however, how many Covid-positive patients were discharged. That is causing significant concern—a point that the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport can perhaps address immediately. It is imperative that the Government provides clarity on the statistics at a local level. In my constituency of Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, people want answers, and that is the least that the SNP can do.
The Government has demonstrated a complete lack of ownership of the problem, which happened entirely on its watch. The First Minister has still not answered the question about when she first knew about the Covid-positive discharges to care homes and what action she took to investigate the situation. The SNP’s tactic has been to blame others for mistakes. Both Nicola Sturgeon and Jeane Freeman blame clinicians, yet we know that the SNP Government had the policy in place. It ignored advice and chose to make dangerous decisions.
When it comes to the detail of Public Health Scotland’s report, the SNP Government fails to take proper ownership. It claims that the report does not show a statistical link between the transfer of patients and the further spread of the virus. Public Health Scotland states in its report that it
“cannot exclude a moderate to large excess risk from a care home receiving a discharge where the last test was positive.”
It will not bring back our loved ones, but we need a full public inquiry into this national tragedy now.
16:36