Hansard

I draw members’ attention to my entry in the register of interests, which states that I am a practising NHS doctor.

The Scottish Conservatives welcome Anas Sarwar’s motion and we support the principle that grieving parents should never again have to beg for the truth to come to light. We need to ensure, however, that an independent public advocate would operate under clear criteria and guidelines. The matter should not be about creating a big-budget department that ends up dealing with patient deaths that are currently well handled by clinicians through normal transparent communication between doctors and families, but the principle is important, so we will support the motion.

The story of Milly Main should be etched into Parliament’s collective memory. It is a tragedy—the avoidable death of a young girl, and a devastated family. It is also a scandal of institutional cover-up, intimidation, ministerial incompetence and a Scottish National Party Government that is consumed by secrecy.

I can only imagine the heartbreak and devastation of losing a child, but Milly’s parents, Kimberly and Neil, were also subjected to what has been described as health board “denial” and even “cover-up” around the circumstances of their daughter’s death, thereby putting them through heartbreak over and over again as they pursued the truth. That is plain cruelty.

Milly’s mum became aware of the Stenotrophomonas infection only when she saw it mentioned on her daughter’s death certificate. Kimberly wrote to the cabinet secretary’s predecessor, Jeane Freeman, with her concerns, but all she got back was a generic pass-the-buck reply, even though the former cabinet secretary knew about the case.

Three months later, a brave whistleblower lifted the veil of secrecy and claimed that the hospital’s contaminated water supply had caused the death of a child who had cancer. The whistleblower then faced bullying and intimidation at the hands of the health board. The SNP Government later hid behind a public inquiry as an excuse for inaction.

We know that Milly was not the only victim, and the SNP Government has been complicit in attempts to cover up multiple serious infections—and even deaths—at the QEUH. Milly was one of 84 children who were infected with bacteria while undergoing treatment, and a third of them suffered health impacts. Everything pointed to an infected water supply, although the health board insisted that such a link could not be proved. Prior to Milly’s death, an independent water risk assessment warned management that the risk of bacteria was high. At both the Royal hospital for children and the Queen Elizabeth university hospital, contamination was found in taps and drains.

It is important to be clear that any cover-up was not the doing of clinicians. In fact, senior doctors who flagged up warnings were branded as troublemakers. Dr Christine Peters, who is a consultant microbiologist, raised issues about ventilation and the risk of infection from the water supply in 2014, before the First Minister opened the hospital. Dr Peters wanted sight of the water risk assessments, but she was not allowed to see them until five years later. There is a history of closing ranks and of refusal to listen to concerned doctors and nurses, and there is a history of intimidation of people who have raised concerns too strongly. However, bullying does not block infection.

In 2019, two patients died at the QEUH after contracting a fungal infection that was caused by pigeon droppings. Last year, a senior Government official who was undergoing cancer treatment was exposed to another fungus—Aspergillus—but that information was concealed from the patient’s widow.

We have seen a pattern of its being left to grieving families to uncover the truth, while the SNP Government fails to do its duty and to hold health boards to account.

Over the past week, I have spoken to members of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde’s board, who have assured me that they are working hard to ensure a safe hospital environment.

All was going well—things were going in the right direction—but this morning I received confirmation from the health board that it knew last year that there are fire safety problems at the £842 million hospital. The internal wall panels contain material that does not meet building regulations, so wall linings will need to be replaced. That additional problem was described to me as being only a technical issue that is quite different to the well-document infection crisis. However, was Grenfell a technical issue? It all beggars belief.