Hansard

My apologies to colleagues for taking additional time at this late hour, but I hope for some understanding when they hear the seriousness of the issue that has led to my amendment. The amendment seeks to add a statement on the urgent situation regarding the Baird family hospital and the Aberdeen and north centre for haematology, oncology and radiotherapy, which is known as the ANCHOR centre, and I hope that there will be cross-party support for it.

I put my request through the proper channels at the bureau, which was denied. Although I welcome the offer to meet Neil Gray, I am afraid that, given that we are at the end of this session of Parliament, the seriousness of the issue and the possible opening of the ANCHOR centre in July mean that greater scrutiny is required, because what is at stake here is a repeat of the tragedy that occurred in the Queen Elizabeth university hospital.

For context, the Baird family hospital and the ANCHOR centre are now six years behind schedule and more than £330 million over budget. Some of these costs are inflationary, but some are due to contractors ripping out newly installed works because designs were not approved, materials were not protected and clinical sign-off was not obtained. The financial waste itself would normally necessitate a ministerial statement—the overrun is five times NHS Grampian’s deficit, and the board is in special measures due to serious financial issues.

However, more worrying than financial incompetence is the serious health and safety concerns that are not being shared with the public, which have come to light in a whistleblower’s report, of which I have a shortened version with me.

The report on NHS Grampian, which was commissioned by NHS Highland, reveals a host of failures in the design and construction of these sites in Aberdeen. There are concerns from expert eyewitnesses about a catalogue of mistakes around ventilation, mould and flood risk at facilities where children and cancer patients will soon go to get better.

The report upholds complaints relating to ventilation and water cleanliness during critical parts of the Baird family hospital and ANCHOR design and construction phases. That includes that the healthcare associated infection system for controlling risk in the built environment—HIA-SCRIBE—guidance was not followed; that the infection prevention control team was not listened to; that public money has been wasted due to HIA-SCRIBE guidance and internal infection prevention and control warnings not being followed; and that patient safety and staff wellbeing have been negatively impacted.

However, this report was denied to me by the chief executive of NHS Grampian. NHS Grampian told me that sharing the report with me would compromise the whistleblower, despite my submitting a consent form from the whistleblower themselves.

The independent national whistleblowing officer has now taken the step of having to extract the full report from NHS Grampian, which will not even release the details to the person who made the complaints and compiled all the evidence. They were told during the process that information contained in the report could never leave the top tiers of NHS Grampian—the insinuation being that that would create some kind of tidal wave of job losses.

The whistleblowing officer, in a departure from their usual process, has contacted NHS Grampian with urgent questions to be answered by this Friday. That departure from normal procedure follows a meeting to discuss the high risks—the imminent opening of the buildings, the on-going failure to address infection prevention and control risks in the Baird family hospital and the ANCHOR centre, and the on-going water safety concerns.

The whistleblowing officer has also been in contact with Healthcare Improvement Scotland and NHS Scotland Assure about their concerns. The whistleblower met the chief executive and director of improvement at NHS Grampian last week, who apologised for what has happened and acknowledged that concerns were not listened to. They assured the whistleblower that they plan to change the culture and improve governance.

The powers that be have apologised to the whistleblower, who was a respected practitioner in the national health service for many years, because they could see NHS Scotland Assure making exactly the same mistakes that it was set up to avoid—mistakes that made children ill in 2017 and resulted in the deaths of children and adults, with repercussions that are still being felt years later.

If NHS Grampian can see that change is needed, and if the independent national whistleblowing officer is concerned enough to depart from normal processes, should the health secretary not explain to the Parliament his knowledge of the issue; whether he can provide a cast-iron guarantee that all infection control measures have been resolved; and whether Lord Brodie’s recommendations will be 100 per cent acted on? We need to know that the Government’s mistakes have been learned from and that the hospital will be the very best hospital that it can be for decades to come, and will save thousands of lives without harming a single one.

I ask members to back my amendment and ensure that the tragedy of the Queen Elizabeth university hospital will not be repeated.

I move amendment S6M-21035.1, to insert after second “followed by Topical Questions”:

“followed by Ministerial Statement: Update on Baird Family Hospital and ANCHOR Centre”.