Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 01 December 2021
At the heart of this issue are patients and their families who have suffered a serious injustice the like of which few of us can even fathom. On top of that, we have hard-working NHS staff whose reputations are being damaged by the failure of authorities to address a life-threatening problem for which no one has been held accountable.
The focus of everything that I am about to say is concern for the welfare and professionalism of both of those groups. That is, after all, our primary responsibility as elected representatives of the people, and I hope that that will be central to any reporting surrounding the story.
Week after week in this chamber, we naturally end up focusing a great deal of time on incompetence and poor governance, but, for me and for Scottish Labour, the central concern should always be the effects on people’s everyday lives.
In this case, at the Queen Elizabeth university hospital, we can see as plain as day that the lives of the people affected have been a secondary consideration. Waterborne infections at the hospital, the extent of which we still do not fully understand, have been a factor in the deaths of a number of people, including children. That is a number of families who will be spending Christmas, and every Christmas after that, without the people closest to them. I am concerned that that is not being fully understood by the Government. Those deaths may have been totally avoidable, yet no one has been properly held to account. That is gross negligence and someone has to answer for it.
We are now at a point where senior clinicians feel that they have no choice but to speak out, despite a culture of bullying that we hear exists within the health board. Having worked in the NHS, I find that truly shocking. I know for a fact that clinicians would take that step only if they felt that all avenues of appeal and justice had been exhausted. I applaud the staff for speaking out and encourage the Government to listen to their pleas, not to the claims of the health board’s senior management.
There are a few simple questions that must be answered. Why are the leaders of the health board still in post? Why are the members of the oversight board still in post? Why have emergency powers not been used to take control of the hospital and get a grip of the situation? Those are basic things that the public demand of a Government, and they are not being done, for reasons that I cannot grasp. Given the justified scrutiny of all Governments’ handling of public health during Covid, it seems to me that we cannot for a second allow public trust in our NHS to be damaged. Why, then, is Scottish Labour forced to call for a change at the top of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde while the Government sits on its hands?
Let us be clear: it gives none of us any pleasure to say that the senior management of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has failed and should step down, but it should take responsibility for the situation and step down immediately. If it will not do so, it should be removed and we should move to stage 5 of the performance escalation framework without delay. That is what my party is calling for. It is right and it is honest. In all honesty, it is the very least that should be done.
We need to decide whether we are on the side of the families, who are righteously furious, and the amazing staff, who are being kept quiet, or whether the primary interest of the out-of-touch managers in the Government is in laundering their reputations. Those who have presided over the mess cannot be allowed to stay in control. The motion must be supported by every member in the chamber.
15:13