Hansard

At the end of the day, the buck stops with the Scottish Government—it runs that public service.

I will choose my words carefully in this debate, but ministers should not mistake that caution for a lack of anger on my part or among members on the Conservative benches.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, in its closing statement to the Scottish hospitals inquiry, said:

“Pressure was applied to open the hospital on time and on budget, and it is now clear that the hospital opened too early. It was not ready.”

Scottish Conservatives, as an Opposition party—and, to be frank, the Parliament—cannot, in all conscience, allow that statement to go by without comment or scrutiny. At the least, we would expect some urgent action.

We know that, in 2015, the then Cabinet Secretary for Health, Wellbeing and Sport, Shona Robison, told the Health and Sport Committee categorically that an independent audit of the hospital would be completed before its opening. We also know that that did not happen. Who has the gravitas to put pressure on a hospital to open before safety checks are complete? That list cannot be long.

What is really concerning is that the timing of the opening has been brought into question just before an election. The silence and obfuscation from the Scottish Government only serves to feed the growing disquiet and lack of trust.

At best, the Scottish Government is guilty of having a chronic lack of oversight or governance of the building and the delivery of such a significant construction. The worst-case scenario hardly bears thinking about. If the Scottish Government—as has been levelled at it—knew about, or was party to, the pressure that was brought to bear on a hospital to open without the audit that Shona Robison had said would take place, and which subsequently did not, just to help with an SNP election campaign, it, along with the NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde board, is guilty of gross negligence leading directly to the tragic deaths that we have all heard about. I sincerely hope that that is not the case.

That is why, given Nicola Sturgeon’s position as Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing when building commenced, and given that she was First Minister when the hospital opened, we have to ask that she come to the chamber to give a statement and answer questions from colleagues, because Ms Sturgeon is uniquely placed to speak to the issue.

I believe that there is general agreement among members across the chamber that, when it comes to health and social care, we should not play politics. However, that willingness to put petty politics aside has to be grounded in an acceptance that, where there is a need for genuine scrutiny and challenge, the Government—and, indeed, the national health service—will participate meaningfully in that scrutiny and in that debate.

Time and again, when questions arise about a decision when a project does not go to plan or when a scandal rears its head, politicians, patients and the public all face the same brick wall. Then come the years of campaigning, which are met by everything from obfuscation to outright denial until, slowly, inch by creeping inch, the truth reveals itself. It should not be like that.

Of course, if the Scottish Government or health boards have a defence for the failings, they should make that clear, but getting to the truth should not be harder than getting blood from a stone. Allowing years to go by and millions of pounds to be spent on investigations before admitting the truth only compounds the original failure. Mistakes can happen for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes, those mistakes are impossible to see coming or are impossible to avoid. However, when they were seen coming, when they were avoidable and when there were consequences of poor decisions or poor planning, there must be accountability, responsibility and honesty.

In any organisation, the culture flows from the top down. Although the First Minister has criticised NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde’s culture, he may wish to remember that his Government sits at the top of the whole of Scotland’s healthcare system. If he wants to know how to change the NHS’s culture, maybe he should start by looking a bit closer to home. By avoiding scrutiny in the latest scandals and by wrapping as much as possible into the latest inquiry, the Scottish Government seems hellbent on ensuring that the election has passed—hiding behind saying, “Let’s wait for the inquiry”—before it needs to answer questions.

We all speak about keeping politics out of health, but, by taking the stance that the Government has, it is dragging politics into health, because we cannot be expected to let these catastrophic failures go unquestioned. That would be gross dereliction of duty and it would let down those who have been so badly affected by these failings. The priority must be to restore confidence and trust for patients and staff alike. Silence will not cut it. We, on the Conservative benches, will not allow it.

I move amendment S6M-20561.2, to insert at end:

“; notes with concern the impact on patients, staff and others resulting from the ongoing questions about the safety of the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital; calls on the Scottish Government to provide clear and explicit guarantees to the public that any issues raised by patients, families and whistleblowers are listened to and fully investigated; believes that the repeated lack of candour by both NHS boards and the Scottish Government in respect of the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital and other scandals is unacceptable; further believes that this lack of openness has placed a greater burden on patients, families and NHS staff and contributed to a growing loss of public trust, and calls, therefore, on Nicola Sturgeon to request to make a personal statement, with questions and answers, to the Scottish Parliament, given her role as Cabinet Secretary for Health and First Minister during the construction and opening of the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital.”