Meeting of the Parliament 11 February 2026 [Draft]
It is with reluctance that we are, once again, having to raise the concerns about the safety of the Queen Elizabeth university hospital’s ventilation and water systems in the Parliament. We do so because we feel compelled to, because patient safety in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde is still very much in question, and because we are not satisfied that the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care is sufficiently across the issue.
When the topic was last raised in the Parliament, I talked about the culture that needed to change in Scotland. That is a much wider and more encompassing issue. I talked about how we must end the situation where loyalty and compliance are rewarded over competency and moral courage and where being in the club is more important than holding institutions of power to account.
In the short time that I have to speak this afternoon, I will talk about how we can do things differently and build a culture that identifies good practice, emulates it, manages problems with integrity and starts to change things for the better through a system of moral courage.
In the shipbuilding industry that I came from, where health and safety must be kept at high standards because lives are at stake, there is a clear expectation at all levels of the workforce that everyone in a team has the responsibility to stop the job if they perceive that something unsafe is happening.
In every major disaster that we have seen in recent years, from the Boeing 737 MAX to Chernobyl, the same pattern applies. People feel that they are unable to speak out or raise concerns and, as a result, lives are lost. That is what has played out in the Queen Elizabeth university hospital. It does not matter whether someone is an apprentice, an engineer or a senior executive: if something is unsafe, they are supposed to call it out and, often, stop working until the issue is resolved.
That is an easy thing to say but, in practice, it takes a great deal of trust, training and courage for that approach to operate as it should. For an apprentice to speak out, they must have confidence that their concerns will be listened to, that action will be taken and that the blame will be on those who caused the issue or failed to act, rather than on those who spotted it and tried to get it resolved.
We have seen that those who had the moral courage have been harangued, cajoled and pressured into silence. It is their courage that we should recognise today, more than anything else, because they have acted with public spirit at their heart. They have undoubtedly helped to save lives, but it is too much of a loss for us to bear that people died unnecessarily as a result of negligence, and we must hold people to account for that. Lives are on the line.
Some members might be wondering how my point relates to the national health service, but it is clear that we need to improve our culture of management in the national health service. The lives of patients and staff are simply too important—any one of us or any member of our family could be affected—to allow an old-fashioned game of pass the blame to continue. We need staff to feel empowered to raise issues and to stop what is happening. We need them to know that their concerns will be acted on immediately and that accountability will lie with those who hold the relevant responsibilities for ensuring safety.
Although many will say that that is already in place, today’s debate shows that we are still not there yet. Today, there are still live risks with the ventilation system in the hospital. The failure to act to validate those critical systems is simply unacceptable and cannot be tolerated.
It is time for the leadership of the Government to stop playing games and to work with the national health service to improve its health and safety record. It is time to stop working towards election deadlines and, instead, do the harder job of guiding our public health system to where it needs to be.
None of the changes that are needed will help the people who have lost loved ones due to the unsafe water and ventilation situation. However, if they are implemented now, we can begin to create a national health service in which such scandals do not happen again. I hope that members will support our motion.