Meeting of the Parliament 11 February 2026 [Draft]
It is really important that members of the board that had responsibility for appointments are told why information was withheld from that board by board executives and board managers and by Government—they need to answer those questions.
Finally, on the questions that need to be answered, will the Government guarantee that there will be genuine independent oversight of the validation and verification process? In order to rebuild public confidence and ensure public safety, the Government must publish all the documentation: everything that it has right now and everything that follows. Anything less than a full commitment on those questions is not good enough, and any equivocation will only demonstrate that the Government has not learned the lessons of the past and is just repeating the same mistakes.
However, I will go further and make a firm commitment today. If the Government does not take the appropriate action, I will. I am very clear that I will ensure that we have an open process and that we will verify and validate the hospital. I will have a transparent and public process. If that means that remedial work has to be done, I will pull out all the stops to make sure that that work happens so that patients can be safe and have confidence. I will not compromise patient safety, so if I have to temporarily close individual wards or units, I will, because I put patient safety before politics, always.
I make it clear that amazing things happen as a result of amazing staff in the hospital every single day. I also accept that there is always a risk of adverse incidents in the NHS—that is the nature of healthcare. However, we have to stop the deliberate misjudgments and a rotten culture of secrecy and cover-up that adds risk to patient safety, and adds higher risk to immunocompromised patients.
The Government needs to put patient safety, truth and transparency at the forefront, and it must stop hiding behind a public inquiry when it comes to operational decisions and patient safety today.
The QEUH was Scotland’s super-hospital: a crown jewel in the SNP Government’s record. That record is now stained with scandal, shame and flat-out corruption. People have died, families have been betrayed and staff have been bullied. The situation is so serious that deaths that are linked to avoidable infections at the hospital are being investigated by the Crown Office, yet no minister and no official has ever taken responsibility or accountability. It is quite the opposite—people have been rewarded.
That cannot happen again. It is time to put patients before politics and to ensure that those who are in need in our hospitals are kept safe.
Let me end by repeating my commitment to the families and staff. I will not be silenced; I will not rest; I will not stop until they get the truth and the justice that they deserve.
I move,
That the Parliament is concerned that the Scottish Government is unable to state clearly that the ventilation and water systems at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital have been validated as meeting required safety requirements; recognises that thousands of patients are treated safely and expertly cared for by NHS staff in the hospital every year; welcomes the establishment of a Safety and Public Confidence Oversight Group, and calls on the Scottish Government to set out by what date it intends to carry out the risk assessment of the hospital’s ventilation system, as recommended by the inquiry, what mitigations are currently in place to ensure that the water is safe to use, how it intends to protect at-risk patients in areas that have not been validated, and when this validation will be carried out and the documentation shared with whistleblowers and infection control.