Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 04 November 2020
Covid-19 is a cruel virus that is particularly dangerous for the most elderly and vulnerable in our society. In the first wave, as we have heard, the lives of over 2,000 care home residents were lost. That is devastating for their loved ones and for the staff who cared for them, and I will never be able to adequately express my sorrow and condolences to them all.
In moving the amendment in my name, I want to be very clear. As we have said repeatedly, the Government wants and will welcome a public inquiry into the response and handling of the pandemic. There is no dispute about that between us and any other party in the chamber. A public inquiry will be critical for a number of reasons, not least for the lessons that it will draw out for any future Government response to a global pandemic, and the critical improvements to any part of the health and social care infrastructure that will be introduced, or aspects that will stay the same, in preparation for that.
The only disagreement may be about the timing of such an inquiry. Right now, as the number of cases, the rate of test positivity, the number of people in hospital and the number who have died must make crystal clear to all of us, we remain in the middle of a global pandemic. If our ultimate responsibility as a Government is to do all that we can to save lives, then that, without question, must remain our focus.
That is why my amendment sets the timeframe for a public inquiry after the country is through the immediacy of dealing with the pandemic. I would welcome the engagement of all parties in working with us on its remit and scope.
One aspect that we should consider together is whether the inquiry should or could be held on a four-nations basis, because I am conscious of the experience of families who have been affected by blood-borne infections. After Scotland’s Penrose inquiry had reported, the United Kingdom Government instigated a UK-wide inquiry. That meant that people who had been affected by that tragedy had to face reliving it twice.
A public inquiry rightly takes time to reach its conclusions; for example, the Penrose inquiry lasted for almost seven years. Put bluntly, however, we do not have time to wait. That is why we have commissioned a range of independent, expert investigations to get us the recommendations now that we need to act on for this winter.
Members will be familiar with the information that I published yesterday that supports the adult social care winter preparedness plan: the evidence paper and the result of the root cause analysis of outbreaks in care homes. Those were in addition to last week’s independent Public Health Scotland report and the recent Care Inspectorate inquiry into care at home, which will both teach us lessons and which fed into the winter plan.
I turn first to Public Health Scotland’s independent report. It found that, although it could not exclude hospital discharge as a factor associated with outbreaks, that was not the major factor; the key factor was the size of the care home. I am not dismissing either.
Given the highly infectious nature of the disease, any person who comes into a care home carries a risk of infection. That is not to blame anyone—it is simply a statement of fact, just as it is a fact that any one of us who comes into this chamber carries a risk of infection. By the very nature of care homes, the larger one is, the larger the number of people who come into it, whether that is through admissions or whether those people are staff, visitors and others providing essential supplies.
We need to learn and work out how we can help providers work with that finding. Members know that I have agreed with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities that we will continue sustainability funding for social care at October levels and work with providers and others during this month to ensure that people get the support that they need, that organisations that need support are able to access it and that services can be safely sustained. That will include making the changes that we need to make to learn the lessons.