Official Report 1740KB pdf
The next item of business is a debate on motion S6M-20561, in the name of Anas Sarwar, on the role of political decision making in national health service scandals. I invite members who wish to participate to press their request-to-speak buttons.
15:04
More than a decade ago, the Queen Elizabeth university hospital opened before it was ready. It opened with contaminated water; that contamination infected patients and led to the deaths of at least two children. Weeks before the children’s hospital opened, an internal report warned of a high risk of infection and, therefore, a high risk to life for immunocompromised patients. That warning was ignored. Children were forced to fight not only cancer but unseen danger inside the very walls that were meant to protect them. I believe that to be at least negligence but, more likely, criminal incompetence. Pressure was applied and the hospital opened anyway, with devastating consequences.
I want to put on record that I recognise the extraordinary work that happens at the hospital every single day and the fact that many NHS staff go above and beyond. However, that must be true for every patient and every family. One failure is one too many, and what happened is not simply one failure but, without question, the biggest scandal in the history of this Scottish Parliament.
Anas Sarwar is absolutely right to pay tribute to the hard-working staff at the QEUH. Does he recognise that several staff members have been affected by compromised water supplies and that staff sickness is a factor, too?
I recognise that. I actually want to start by focusing on the staff and recognising the people who are often only described as the whistleblowers. They are, in fact, three inspiring and courageous women, who risked their careers and reputations to speak up and were met with bullying and attempts to silence them. Let me put on record, for the first time in the Parliament, my gratitude to Dr Penelope Redding, Dr Teresa Inkster and Dr Christine Peters. Let me say clearly and directly to them: thank you. You are owed an apology.
They are actually owed more than that. Not only do colleagues and families owe those doctors a debt of gratitude, I believe that this nation does too. For nearly 10 years, those women have been bullied and dismissed by the very organisation that they were proud to serve. Had they been listened to, we would not be in the situation in which we are today. Even now, no chief executive or chair has met them—the only minister who met them was Jeane Freeman.
Crucially, the information that those doctors need to be assured that real change is taking place is still not being shared with them. With regard to their immediate concerns about the safety of that hospital, I clearly say that if they are not satisfied, I am not satisfied, and nobody in the Parliament and across the country should be satisfied either. Everything that they have warned about in the past 10 years has proven to be true, and everything that ministers and officials have said to refute it has proven to be untrue. Yet, today, we are again being asked to believe the same people who have lied to us for years and ignored those who have fought for the truth.
Those doctors are raising two urgent issues. First, we still do not have confirmation that the hospital has been fully validated—that means a deep and comprehensive check of every ward and unit to ensure that they meet the standards that patients and families have every right to expect. I therefore ask the health secretary a direct question. Has every ward and unit of the hospital been fully validated—yes or no?
If those doctors still do not know whether that hospital validation has taken place, it raises serious questions. Has any validation had independent verification? Why has that report, if it exists, not been shared with those doctors? Again, I ask whether the validation has been completed—yes or no? If it has, will the full validation of every ward and unit across the Queen Elizabeth university hospital be published? The Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care surely knows the answer.
Wow. The health secretary gives no response. That is utterly shameful and an abdication of the responsibility of the Government and the health secretary.
There has been a separate report specifically on the safety of the ventilation system—the so-called AECOM report—as poor ventilation is a risk not only to children but also to adults. Has the Government seen that report? Will it publish it, and will it allow that, too, to have independent verification?
The health secretary is still not answering. It is utterly shameful that the Government is refusing to say to people across the country whether the hospital, and every ward and every unit in it, have been validated and are therefore safe. We are getting no response.
Last week, John Swinney said that the Government first became aware of issues at the hospital in March 2018. That is simply not true. Under infection control procedures, when a healthcare infection incident assessment tool—HIIAT—red warning is issued, the health minister must be informed. A red warning was issued in June 2017. Was the then health secretary informed in June 2017—yes or no?
The cabinet secretary is not answering.
Has Neil Gray, as health secretary, been notified of any HIIAT red warnings since he has been health secretary? If he has, when and how many times has he been notified?
The health secretary is not answering. That is yet another abdication of responsibility from a health secretary who is paid by the public to keep them safe and run our national health service.
I go back to the opening of the hospital. A process exists. Jeane Freeman saw a report on the Edinburgh sick kids hospital and refused to allow it to open because she did not believe that it was safe. Why did Nicola Sturgeon, John Swinney and Shona Robison not do the same for the hospital in Glasgow?
We now know that an internal report that was issued just weeks before the children’s hospital in Glasgow opened warned of a high risk of infection and therefore a high risk to life for immunocompromised patients, but that report was ignored and the hospital opened regardless. Who made the decision to ignore it? On what basis was the risk to life deemed acceptable? Who applied political pressure to get the hospital opened?
Again, I invite the health secretary to give a response. Yet again, he demonstrates that he is useless in office by sitting there looking blankly.
Last week, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said that pressure was applied for the hospital to open before it was ready. Five days later, late on Saturday night, it retracted that statement, knowing that the First Minister was to appear on television the next morning. That leaves me intrigued. Who applied the pressure for that statement to be retracted? Was it the same people who applied the pressure for the hospital to open too early?
We must know whether those who applied pressure and the ministers to whom the board was accountable had any indication of patient safety concerns.
Will Anas Sarwar take an intervention?
I will not, because if anyone should intervene and answer those direct questions, it should be the health secretary, whose job it is to know the answer to such questions.
That is why, alongside the demand to release the files, I am making a further demand today.
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I hesitate to intervene in this way, but I have concerns about the fact that although the inquiry has yet to report, what I am hearing, to some extent, is a rerun of the evidence and the suggesting of other evidence. The whole point of the inquiry is to be wholly independent of any political nuances, suggestions or whatever.
I seek your guidance on whether you consider that Mr Sarwar is now stepping into an area that he should not step into.
Thank you for your point of order, Ms Grahame. Were I to believe that he was stepping into an area that he should not be stepping into, I would step in. I do not consider that to be the case.
Please continue, Mr Sarwar.
I have been raising these issues for seven years and, for seven years, I have heard the same nonsense that Christine Grahame has just recounted.
I say to Scottish National Party members that hospital infections do not discriminate by political affiliation or by people’s constitutional position. Such infections contaminate people, whether they are a yes voter or a no voter, an SNP voter or a Labour voter, or a supporter of no party at all, so SNP members should care about these issues as much as Labour members do.
Christine Grahame rose—
We must know the truth behind the political decision making. The inquiry is vital and it must run its course, but new information has come to light in the past week, and no real scrutiny has taken place of the political decisions that were made before and after the hospital was opened. [Interruption.]
You do yourself a disservice, Ms Grahame, I must say, in your response.
Speak through the chair.
Nicola Sturgeon, John Swinney and Shona Robison have not given testimony at the inquiry and have not been cross-examined. Without that, we will never have the full picture of what happened.
There is a further risk. If political decision making is not examined, ministers will attempt to use the final report of the inquiry as proof that the problems were contained entirely within the health board and could not have been prevented by Government intervention. That claim cannot be allowed to stand without proper scrutiny. Jeane Freeman has given evidence, and that is welcome, but she was appointed health secretary in 2019. We need those who were in office in 2015 to answer questions, too.
I will speak directly about the families, who are among the most remarkable people that I have ever met. I have the privilege of calling Kimberly Darroch a friend. Although the whistleblowers helped us to get to this point, we would not be where we are without the courage of the families who refused to stay silent. Kimberly has fought not because it will bring back her amazing daughter, Milly Main, but because she is determined that no other family should endure what she has endured. That takes unimaginable strength and courage. To Kimberly and to all the families: thank you. The dignity that you have shown has been extraordinary. You have fought for years to protect others, and you are the very best of Scotland.
I will turn to a couple of other issues. Although, understandably, much of the attention has been on the children, infections in adults have not been given the level of scrutiny that they deserve. Those families still do not have answers; there has been no independent oversight of their concerns; and they are being asked to trust the same system that has failed other families. If they believe that there is a link between infection and the loss of their loved ones, they deserve the truth and answers, just like any other family.
Finally, although attention has been focused on the water supply, there must also be full scrutiny of the ventilation system and its potential link to infection and risk to life.
When I say that this is the biggest scandal in the history of the Parliament, let me be clear about what has happened. Parents who should have been focused solely on supporting their child through cancer treatment were instead met with denial, delay and institutional self-protection. Whistleblowers were ignored, gaslit, lied to and punished for speaking out. Families were dismissed, patronised and made to feel as though they were making a fuss, when they just wanted answers about their children. Clinicians and staff who raised concerns were bullied and victimised by NHS managers, who are paid for by the public purse. Powerful institutions chose their reputations over their responsibility to patients.
The health board and SNP ministers denied, downplayed and delayed. They did not put patient safety first. They did not put families first. They closed ranks. This is not about the NHS front-line staff—nurses, doctors, cleaners and porters—who care with compassion and professionalism under immense pressure every day. They are not to blame. The failure lies with senior leadership and a culture of secrecy and poor governance, enabled by incompetent ministers who repeatedly denied the scale of the problem and dismissed legitimate concerns. The public inquiry is vital and must run its course, but it cannot be used as a shield for secrecy or inaction on the issues that confront patients today.
That is why I am asking for the Parliament to vote for two things: first, the release of all ministerial and officials’ communication and discussions relating to the Queen Elizabeth scandal, and the taking of steps to ensure that none of the vital files—be they WhatsApp messages or messages on personal servers—are systematically deleted, as we know the Government likes to do; secondly, a real investigation into political decision making, because people deserve to know what happened and ministers should be held to account.
Families deserve answers, accountability and justice. The direct questions that I posed to the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care must be answered during the debate if the Government is to have a shred of credibility with the public.
I urge MSPs to put aside their political affiliation and do what is right by patients and families by voting for the motion.
I move,
That the Parliament condemns the culture of secrecy and cover-up that has hidden the truth from patients, families and campaigners and denied them justice in many NHS scandals in Scotland in recent years; recognises that, as the Scottish Hospitals Inquiry draws to a close, many serious questions remain regarding the decision-making process and the role of the Scottish Government; considers that political decision making should be considered by the inquiry, and calls for the Scottish Ministers to authorise the immediate full disclosure and preservation of all communications connected to the contaminated water and inadequate ventilation system and the premature opening of the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, as well as any subsequent communications relating to the handling of the infection and its cover-up.
15:19
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate. The matters that are before us today go to the heart of public trust and patient safety, and I begin my speech by extending my deepest sympathies to every family who has lost a loved one and to every patient who has suffered harm or distress in connection with the issues that are being examined by the inquiry. No words spoken in the chamber can undo what they have endured, but it is essential that the Parliament acknowledges their pain, their courage and their determination to seek truth. Their persistence has been extraordinary. It is because of them that these matters are now subject to full independent scrutiny, with the determination that no other family has to suffer in the same way. I pay tribute to every single one of them.
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde was responsible for the delivery and oversight of the Queen Elizabeth university hospital project. It was the largest hospital build in Scotland’s history, and was designed to be a flagship for modern healthcare, serving patients for decades to come. However, when serious and deeply concerning allegations were brought to the Government’s attention in 2018 about safety, construction standards and ventilation systems and the potential links to infection and patient harm, it became clear that those concerns could not be dealt with through internal reviews alone.
That is why the Scottish Government established a statutory public inquiry, to ensure that those affected could have their questions answered in a forum that is independent, rigorous and empowered by law. The Government’s intention in doing so was clear and unequivocal—to uncover the full truth about what happened, why it happened and what lessons must be learned.
Before I turn to the substance of the motion, I note again to the chamber two important points of clarity. First, neither the Scottish ministers nor anyone in the chamber should prejudge the outcome of the inquiry or seek to influence the independent chair. That would be wholly inappropriate and, indeed, a breach of the very principles that are set out in the Inquiries Act 2005.
Secondly, the police and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service have independent responsibilities to investigate and prosecute as they see fit. There is a live, on-going police investigation into patient deaths. For that reason, I will not be commenting further on that particular matter.
I turn to the motion that was lodged by Mr Sarwar. I understand the motivation behind it. When something goes badly wrong in a project of this scale and significance, it is entirely reasonable to want every possible line of responsibility examined. However, although I recognise the concern that underpins the motion, I cannot support it, because it would be incompatible with the legal framework that governs the inquiry.
All statutory public inquiries in Scotland operate under the 2005 act, which was passed by Parliament. That act exists to protect the independence, integrity and credibility of inquiries. It gives inquiry chairs powerful legal tools—the power to compel witnesses, to require the production of documents, to take evidence on oath and to determine what evidence is relevant to their terms of reference. Those powers are not held by ministers but by the independent inquiry chair.
Any member who seeks to support the motion’s attempt to influence the action of the chair is calling for the Government to act in a manner that is incompatible with that legislation, which, of course, we cannot do. The separation in the act is fundamental. It ensures that no Government, present or future, can direct, restrict or shape an inquiry to suit political convenience; it ensures that the search for truth is not compromised by external pressure; and it ensures that the families who have placed their trust in the process can have confidence that it is conducted without fear or favour.
To instruct or to attempt to instruct a statutory inquiry to examine particular categories of evidence after the inquiry has been established and is under way would be a breach of that framework. It would undermine the very independence that gives the inquiry its legitimacy. It is therefore not for Scottish ministers—or, indeed, for the Parliament—to decide what evidence Lord Brodie should or should not consider; that responsibility rests with him alone.
I am grateful to the cabinet secretary for giving way. You were asked a question about validation of every section of the hospital. That is not about the inquiry; it is about now. You have a responsibility as cabinet secretary to provide assurance to the public.
Please speak through the chair.
That is a matter for the inquiry. Lord Brodie has instructed independent evidence as to the hospital’s current infrastructure. That evidence was provided by Mr Poplett, and it goes into the detail of the situation that is currently before the hospital. Therefore, that is a matter for the inquiry.
Is it validated—yes or no?
Mr Sarwar, you have had an opportunity to state your case. I would be grateful if you were not making interventions from a sedentary position.
That is a matter for the inquiry to determine. There are live inquiries under way that must be allowed the respect to conclude their business before we make a conclusion on the evidence before us.
I give way, finally, to Daniel Johnson.
I am grateful, but the cabinet secretary is mistaken. There are questions about what happened, but the question that Ms Baillie put to him is: what is the current status of the hospital? Are those facilities validated and declared safe—yes or no?
That is a matter for the inquiry. [Interruption.] I will come to this. It is a matter for Lord Brodie to determine the evidence that he seeks, relevant to the terms of reference. He has received evidence from independent experts—
Will the cabinet secretary give way?
No, I will not. I am sorry, but I have given way for the final time.
Lord Brodie has taken independent evidence as to the current situation with the hospital. The Government has also sought assurance from Healthcare Improvement Scotland as to the current safety of the hospital, and it has set out its consideration of the current safety of the hospital, which gives us assurance as to its safety.
Lord Brodie and his team have led the inquiry in exactly the spirit that I have set out. The inquiry is not beholden to the Government, the health board or any political party. It is beholden only to the law, the evidence and the people affected by these events. Thousands of documents have been reviewed. Detailed technical evidence has been heard. Witnesses across the system—clinicians, engineers, managers, civil servants and ministers—have had their evidence examined. Serious and troubling issues have emerged, and I do not shy away from that. However, it is precisely because the issues are serious that it is so important that the inquiry is allowed to complete its work properly without interference or political direction.
The Scottish Government has complied fully with the inquiry. We have provided all evidence relevant to its terms of reference that has been requested. That includes ministerial communications, briefings, submissions, minutes of meetings, Cabinet papers and records, from the earliest conception of the hospital programme through the development of the business case, the construction phase and the approvals that followed. All ministerial decision making connected to the project has already been made available at the request of the inquiry. Those documents have been supplemented by testimony from senior officials and from former and current ministers. If Lord Brodie considers that further information, clarification or testimony is required, the Government will provide it—I can confirm that unequivocally today.
I turn to the substance of the Greens’ amendment. I am sympathetic to the focus that has been placed on ensuring patient confidence in safety. In that regard, I asked Healthcare Improvement Scotland in March last year to conduct a further review of the progress made by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde in meeting health and safety requirements and recommendations, as set out in the action plan from the Queen Elizabeth university hospital assurance of infection prevention and control inspection of June 2022.
In addition, there was a focused inspection of the emergency department in July 2024 as part of the wider NHS GGC emergency department review, which resulted in a number of actions, which have also been addressed. HIS subsequently confirmed that it was reassured by the response to that review by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde—assurance that has continued through a series of further inspections. Taking that commitment to patient safety further, the Scottish Government has introduced a patient safety charter as an additional part of the Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Act 2023, taking into account the concerns and experiences that resulted in the proposals for Milly’s law.
It is hugely important that the work of the commissioner leads to honesty, learning and improvement, and it is for that reason that the Government will support the Greens’ amendment today.
We cannot support the Conservatives’ amendment, for the same reasons regarding political interference in the inquiries that I have set out in regard to Mr Sarwar’s motion. However, I give Mr Whittle my assurance again that this Government is absolutely committed to transparency. I have been crystal clear with NHS boards about my expectations of protections for whistleblowers—I have set that out repeatedly to Mr Kerr when he has questioned me on the matter—and I am clear that any further issues raised by patients, families and whistleblowers beyond the inquiry will be listened to.
The final hearings have now concluded. We are at a critical point in the process. The families who have waited so long for answers deserve nothing less than a report that is careful, thorough and gets to the truth. However, we must not pre-empt the inquiry’s work, nor should we undermine its authority. When the report is published, Scottish ministers will consider its conclusions with the seriousness that they demand. We will respond in full, and we will take action wherever it is required to ensure that lessons are learned and patient safety is strengthened.
I move amendment S6M-20561.1, to leave out from “condemns” to end and insert:
“pays tribute to the brave patients, families and whistleblowers who have campaigned tirelessly for justice in the Scottish Hospitals Inquiry; recognises the pain, trauma and grief faced by patients and their families at the heart of this inquiry, and notes that the inquiry was established in 2019 to ensure that every individual impacted is able to get the truth that they deserve; notes the fundamental importance of the independence of inquiries, which are enshrined in legislation, under the control of an independent chair, and which operate transparently, reaching conclusions that are not to be influenced by ministers or other vested interests, and agrees, therefore, that the independent Scottish Hospitals Inquiry Chair must be given the time and space to consider all the available evidence.”
I remind members that reacting to what is being said in the chamber is one thing, but I will not accept running commentaries on what is being said.
15:29
I do not want to be speaking in this debate, because it has come about because of failure—a failure that has led to men, women and children dying unnecessarily in a building built and run by an organisation whose foundational purpose is to heal.
I have to say how disappointed I am to see the lack of Scottish National Party Glasgow MSPs in the chamber.
For the vast majority of patients who have visited the Queen Elizabeth university hospital, their care has been as excellent as any that the NHS is able to deliver, and the outcomes have been as good as they would be in any hospital in Scotland. The staff who work in the Queen Elizabeth campus are as diligent and professional as any in the NHS, and their hard work should not be diminished. The fact that there are broken parts does not mean that the whole is broken.
When we speak of this failure, the last thing that any of us should want is anyone to cancel an appointment or avoid seeking help because, in speaking about the issue, we have given the impression that it is too dangerous for them to go. On that point, I go back to the cabinet secretary’s response to Jackie Baillie. When she asked him a direct question—“Is the hospital now safe for patients?”—he was unable to answer it. How on earth can we expect patients to go to the hospital and feel safe?
I have no doubt that the hospital is safe. The question that I was asked by Jackie Baillie was on something different, which is subject to the terms of the inquiry. That is why I could not answer it in full detail. But, yes, the hospital is safe.
Would the member take an intervention from me?
I shall stay seated.
Thank you. What the cabinet secretary described was not my question. I think that he is misinterpreting it. If he had paid attention to what was going on in the inquiry, he would know that the general rooms in the hospital have not been validated.
Would you agree that it is his responsibility that the hospital should be safe?
Again, through the chair.
I can give you the time back, Mr Whittle.
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.”
15:37
As others have, I begin by paying tribute to the tireless efforts of the families who have campaigned so hard to shine a light on what went wrong at the Queen Elizabeth university hospital. They have often faced shocking treatment and have been labelled as troublesome or difficult when they were just trying to get justice for their loved ones. The focus of my contribution will be on the impact on the families, the current and future patients and the staff who are working at the hospital, all of whom may be suffering extreme distress while the revelations about who knew what and when are made public.
Having to go through what the families have gone through, let alone seeing one’s family stories and grief played out in public, is something that I am sure none of us can even imagine. Having to fight to have their voices heard and to go through a long public inquiry has also been traumatic. I cannot imagine how it must feel for them to be watching what is going on in the Parliament.
Clearly, things have gone wrong and there have been issues with water and ventilation, as well as issues around decision making. The question now is how we demand accountability and start to rebuild the trust that has been so horribly fractured by the episode. In order to understand the impact that the incidents have had on trust, we need to examine the testimonies of those who have been affected.
Cancer diagnoses are life-changing, traumatic events. Patients and their families should not have to worry about the safety of the hospital where they are being treated. NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde admitted in its closing submission:
“A patient diagnosed with such a condition, and the families supporting them must have confidence in the buildings and the systems within them. They should be able to devote all of their attention to their treatment, not concerns about the environment in which that treatment takes place.”
Unfortunately, as we all know, that was not the case for some patients at the Queen Elizabeth university hospital. In a recent article on the BBC News website, one mum, whose daughter contracted an infection when she was little, said:
“A hospital is supposed to be your safe place where you go to ask for help”.
She said that she still feels traumatised and lives in fear that her child will relapse and have to go back into hospital. As a parent, having a child admitted to hospital because they are unwell is frightening enough, but to have the weight of the fear of another infection hanging over you must be unbearable. Tragically, that mother and another mother whose child caught an infection say that they still live with survivor’s guilt due to the fact that their children are alive while others died. No parent should have to carry that burden.
After having experienced such pain, fear and trauma, having then to campaign to get the truth about what happened to your child is unthinkable. We owe it to those families to get to the bottom of what happened, to not use this as a political football but to shine a light on the inquiry, pay heed to its findings and keep asking questions of the Government and the health board about how we can ensure that this never happens again.
I thank the member for her speech and for mentioning the families in the way that she has. It is much appreciated.
Given what the member is saying, will she support our motion, in order to ensure that we get immediate disclosure of the information that we need?
I confirm that we will support the motion at decision time.
Although extensive remedial work has been done to the building, people will have been frightened and worried by the series of headlines about infections. It is up to both NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and the Scottish Government to reassure people that, when they are treated for a serious illness such as cancer, they will be safe. The poor communication between the health board and patients and their families has been a stand-out revelation during the inquiry. Likewise, clinical staff deserve to know that they are working in a safe environment, so that they can get on with the incredible work they do. Their efforts should not be hampered by working in a building that threatens their patients’ safety. Frankly, they should not have to worry about that. It is not their job to do so, and they have been failed too.
Whistleblowing staff have also been let down. One microbiologist said that she felt discouraged from speaking up at infection control meetings. Another senior doctor said that she was advised by a senior colleague to “pipe down” or she would find things hard professionally. She has previously said that she had been flagging concerns about the building since 2014 and was advised not to put anything in writing.
Staff need to know that, when they raise concerns, they will be listened to. Although NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has accepted that its previous criticisms of the whistleblowers were neither helpful nor fair, it is clear that the whistleblowing system failed, and that will not be conducive to others coming forward with concerns in the future. The health board has a lot of work to do to assure staff that whistleblowers will be protected and, most importantly, taken seriously.
Much has been made of the fact that NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has admitted that pressure was applied to open the hospital on time and on budget, and it is now clear that the hospital opened too early. The board has since clarified that there was internal pressure, but that begs the question of how we have reached the point that a health board feels so under pressure to deliver that it sacrifices patient safety for the sake of remaining on budget. What series of decisions were taken, and how can we prevent anything like that ever happening again?
The on-going inquiries should be allowed to conclude in their own time, and any conclusions need to be acted on quickly and comprehensively. However, before those recommendations are available, we need to ensure that anyone attending the hospital can be fully confident that they are safe. The Scottish Government and the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care must lead the way on that.
I move amendment S6M-20561.3, to insert at end:
“; acknowledges that recent revelations surrounding the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital will have been distressing for patients, their families and staff; understands that this could create uncertainty and fear regarding the safety of Scotland’s hospitals and negatively impact staff morale; recognises that patient privacy has to be given the greatest consideration in the publication of any materials, and calls for the Scottish Government to outline how it will urgently restore confidence into the services delivered by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.”
15:43
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this important debate. I am also grateful to Anas Sarwar for making Opposition time available for the debate. However, it should not be left to Opposition parties to make time for it. As we have heard, the scandal has rumbled on for more than seven years. At every point and at every development, the Government should have recognised that it should bring the issues to Parliament and explain the decisions that were taken and the developments that resulted, and that it should give reassurance to patients and staff with regard to their safety.
Like everyone else, I want to begin by addressing the issue of the families who have been affected by this awful situation. They trusted our health system and rightly expected their loved ones to be treated with care in a safe environment. Not only have they had to endure incredible trauma and heartbreaking loss, but they have been forced to endure years of unanswered questions. They have had to fight not only for the truth but simply to be listened to, and they have been forced to campaign while grieving deaths that should never have happened.
We must also thank the staff whose bravery has been manifest today in the whistleblowing that we have heard about. We must recognise that they, too, have suffered ill effects due to the contaminated water supply at the Queen Elizabeth university hospital.
When it opened in 2015, the hospital was intended to be a flagship: a symbol of modern, world-class care and the jewel in the crown of our health service. Instead, it became the site of contaminated water systems, inadequate ventilation and fatal infections. Vulnerable children were exposed to avoidable risk—some lost their lives; others suffered harm that could and should have been prevented.
The Scottish hospitals inquiry has revealed not just a single failure but a catalogue of failures in the design of the hospital and in its construction, and in relation to infection control, governance and oversight. There were grave errors in decision making and then a failure—an abject failure—by the Government to take accountability.
There are serious questions to be answered here. As far back as March 2018, three children were being treated for infections that were likely linked to problems with the water supply at the hospital. In September that same year, child cancer patients were moved to a different ward—again, due to water supply problems.
We know that senior doctors at the hospital raised concerns about risks to patient safety, but they all fell on deaf ears. As a result, people died, including 10-year-old Milly Main, whose mother has since campaigned tirelessly for justice and answers. Today’s motion rightly condemns the culture of secrecy and cover-up that has characterised this scandal and too many other NHS scandals that have taken place under this Government. Time and again, families were kept in the dark, concerns were minimised and, crucially, warnings were not acted on. At the weekend, John Swinney admitted that, “It does look like” patients who acquired infections while being treated at the hospital, and their families, were lied to.
Too often, the instinct was to manage reputational risk rather than confront uncomfortable truths and own up to where mistakes were made. The inquiry has raised serious concerns about how information flowed, or failed to flow, among health boards, officials and ministers. Key questions still remain unanswered. Who knew? What did they know? Why was the hospital opened prematurely, despite the manifest safety concerns that we have all heard about today? Why have families had to fight for years for answers that they should have been given within days?
Those are not administrative questions; they are political ones. It is right that questions are asked of those who wielded power at the time, and that they are brought to account. If political pressure influenced the premature opening of the hospital, that must be examined. If communications were withheld, delayed or managed to control fallout, that must also be examined. If decisions were shaped by the optics of the situation rather than by patient safety, the Parliament and the public deserve to know why.
No Government should ever be allowed to hide behind the process when lives have been lost—not ever. Transparency is not optional; it is a moral obligation. That is why the Government must commit now to full disclosure of all communications and documents connected to the events at the hospital. Families should not have to fight through freedom of information requests and overcome legal barriers to get the truth about the events that resulted in the deaths of their loved ones. The families are not asking for sympathy or kind words; they are demanding real accountability and change, and they are right to do so.
We must learn from those failures so that they are never repeated. There must be independent oversight of hospital safety and design, and lines of accountability. There must be a culture in which whistleblowers and families are listened to and in which their concerns are treated with the respect and seriousness that they deserve, and then acted upon. It should go without saying that patient safety must always come before political reputation.
The families who have been affected by the failures at the hospital have shown extraordinary courage in their pursuit of the truth. The least that the Government owes them is transparency, accountability and a commitment to change, so that something like this is never, ever allowed to happen again.
We now move to the open debate, with back-bench speeches of up to six minutes.
15:48
Public trust in governance and decision making, whether at the local or national level, is crucial for our institutions and democracy. Transparency and accountability are equally as important. We in the Parliament would all agree that people who work in public service must strive to ensure that those values are upheld.
In 2015, the Queen Elizabeth university hospital campus opened its doors for the first time. It was celebrated as a super-hospital and welcomed as one of the most advanced healthcare facilities in the world, yet, 10 years later, this flagship hospital faces a serious scandal.
That is not only because the contamination of the hospital’s water and ventilation system caused serious infection in child cancer patients and four deaths, but because of the subsequent secrecy, covering up and silencing of staff who tried to expose the truth. The cabinet secretary is shying away from answering questions that relate to the here and now. Families were gaslit, dismissed and denied the truth. We do not want that to happen again.
There are many failings that we can discuss in this debate—in leadership, accountability and transparency.
First, the board failed to listen to the families, doctors and whistleblowers who raised concerns from the beginning about problems with the water and ventilation system. The public inquiry heard first-hand accounts of management attempts to silence, threaten and belittle staff, and it is clear that whistleblowing procedures were not followed. The growing culture of ignoring staff and refusing to act on their concerns raises serious questions about management structures in and the leadership of our NHS.
It also raises concern about this SNP Government’s oversight of our most valuable public asset. Problems with water systems were identified in 2015 and again in 2017, but the Scottish Government claims that it was first made aware of them in March 2018. However, as my colleague Anas Sarwar said, there are serious questions about whether that is true. We need some truth. Given that the Government says that it was unaware of the issues in its brand-new super-hospital, it is clear that it failed to provide the oversight and effective leadership that was required.
Secondly, proper procedure failed and the hospital was opened before it was ready. The failure to carry out proper checks resulted in the premature opening of a facility that was not fit for purpose. Evidence to the inquiry shows that the risk of waterborne infection was foreseeable and that it had been raised but was not acted upon. That was a serious error in judgment.
The pressure to open the hospital on time and within budget, whether that came from within the hospital or above, must be heavily scrutinised. It is our job in the Parliament to scrutinise those issues. All those who were involved in decision making, be that operational or political, must be held to account—that is why we are discussing the issue in this debate. The culture of secrecy and cover-up must come to an end.
Thirdly, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde failed to accept that the water and ventilation systems could be the cause of infections. It failed to admit serious errors in judgment, and it failed to take accountability. In doing so, it prevented transparency and withheld the truth from patients and families. Staff were neglected, families were ignored, and the public were denied the truth.
We are debating this issue today because the Queen Elizabeth university hospital was allowed to open before it should have. We must question that. Families were denied the truth about the role of the hospital in causing the infections and deaths of patients. The Scottish Government is refusing to take any accountability for the errors that were made under its watch. Accountability is what we must discuss, and the Scottish Government was accountable for what happened in our NHS.
I cannot begin to imagine the pain and trauma that those who are affected by the scandal have faced; they are brave to have spoken out. To lose a child to an avoidable death or to have them suffer a severe infection is one thing, but to be denied the truth about the true cause of their death or infection is quite another. Patients and families are angry, and they should be. What they seek now is truth and justice, and that is what they deserve.
I urge the Government to authorise the immediate and full disclosure and preservation of communications that relate to the contaminated water and inadequate ventilation systems and the premature opening of the hospital, as well as any further communications that relate to the issues that we are discussing. By not publishing those documents, we would risk abandoning transparency, diminishing the public’s trust and repeating the same mistakes.
There were problems with the hospital from the very beginning. Long waiting times, staff vacancies and poor infrastructure. The SNP cannot deny its incompetence in overseeing the development and opening of a hospital that would go on to have so many problems.
If the Scottish Government has nothing to hide, it should prove it. Providing full transparency over this matter is the least that the Scottish Government can do for those whistleblowers and families, and it is the least that the patients, families and staff deserve.
15:55
I remind members of my entry in the register of members’ interests, which shows that I hold a bank nurse contract with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.
I will begin, as others have, by expressing my deepest sympathies to all those who are grieving the loss of a loved one in the circumstances that we are discussing. Patients, families and whistleblowers have shown incredible tenacity and dignity as they have shared their testimony, campaigned tirelessly for justice and made every effort to ensure that the truth is determined.
A hospital should be a safe place where people seek not only medical help but reassurance, care and comfort throughout their treatment. Relatives should feel confident leaving their loved ones in the care of the NHS. That safe place can be provided only in a trusted environment. Patient safety is one of the Government’s key priorities, and it is fundamental that the patients and families who use our hospitals are reassured that they are accessing safe clinical environments. As an MSP who has constituents who attend the Queen Elizabeth university hospital as patients as well as constituents who work there, it is critically important to me that they can have confidence in the ability of the hospital to operate safely.
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has rightly offered
“a sincere and unreserved apology”
to patients and families affected by the events under investigation in the hospitals inquiry. However, I know that, for many people, including colleagues across the chamber, that is simply not enough without thorough and comprehensive assurance.
It was reassuring to read the independent evidence of the expert Andrew Poplett, who provided evidence to Lord Brodie’s inquiry in September last year. He concluded that the hospital’s current procedures for managing the water system are safe, suitable and currently extremely well managed. He also concluded that significant improvements have been made in the hospital’s water system.
However, the fact remains that people have been badly let down in the past, and lessons must absolutely be learned as a result. Only robust investigation will get us answers to ensure that families get the truth that they want and need. That is precisely why the Scottish Government established a public inquiry, led by Lord Brodie, which I have every confidence will provide the scrutiny and the truth that is required by the families affected and by everyone else.
While the hospitals inquiry is under way, it is completely inappropriate for ministers to comment on or narrate what is going on around the issues that it is investigating. Not only would it be completely inappropriate for ministers to seek to intervene or suppress any inquiries, pre-empt their findings or do anything other than allow the process to continue, it would also be unlawful.
The inquiry is being held under the UK-wide Inquiries Act 2005, and I will take a moment to discuss that, as we are talking about a well-established piece of legislation. Before it came into force, at least 10 different pieces of legislation had been used to provide a statutory basis for inquiries in the UK. The 2005 act and the subsequent Inquiries (Scotland) Rules 2007 have a range of important provisions, including giving an inquiry’s chair the power to compel the attendance of witnesses or the production of documents; allowing for evidence to be taken under oath; a statutory duty to secure public access to evidence and documents; and the ability for core participants to recover reasonable legal expenses, helping them to meaningfully participate in proceedings. For those reasons, the decision to establish the Scottish hospitals inquiry under the 2005 act was therefore a significant and important one.
Perhaps the key provision in the 2005 act is that the initial establishment of the terms of reference is the last point of ministerial input or influence before any inquiry concludes. Once that happens, inquiries are completely independent of ministers. That is written into the legislation for very good reason, and it is essential that they are able to operate in a truly independent manner.
When my Opposition colleagues lined up to welcome the then Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport’s intention to establish a statutory inquiry under the 2005 act, I remember Mr Sarwar in particular stressing that the inquiry had to be genuinely independent, and he was absolutely correct. However, the point should be very familiar to colleagues, as it has been clearly and repeatedly stated in the chamber, not least by the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, Neil Gray last March, when he made a statement on the hospitals inquiry’s interim report.
Does Clare Haughey recognise that reassuring the public about patient safety and what is happening in the hospital today does not contradict the role of the inquiry? Patients today have a right to know whether the ward and the units have been validated and are therefore safe. That does not contradict the investigations of the inquiry. It should be a basic requirement of Government to give that reassurance.
As I referenced earlier in my speech, Lord Brodie has already instructed someone to make inquiries about the safety of the hospital, and they reported that they felt that the safety of the hospital’s water system was being maintained.
It is absolutely fundamental that inquiries can operate transparently and reach conclusions that are not influenced by ministers or any other type of vested interest.
When Lord Brodie spoke ahead of the first diet of hearings in the hospitals inquiry, he spoke first of patients and their families. He said that his first priority was to understand their experiences and to use that to inform subsequent lines of investigation. Therefore, I will finish as I began, by bringing my focus back to them. I sincerely hope that, when the inquiry’s final conclusions and recommendations are published, the patients and their families can finally gain a sense of closure and of being heard, and that they feel as though their questions have been answered. For their sake, Lord Brodie must be given time and space to consider all the evidence, complete his work and get to the truth that they deserve.
I remind members that back-bench speeches are of up to six minutes and that there is no time in hand.
16:02
My heart is heavy as I think about the families affected who have had to endure this avoidable tragedy. The Queen Elizabeth university hospital was designed to be a flagship and should have hit the ground running, but it saddens me to say that it is now infamous—it is more like the Titanic.
Children and adults died. Many people caught serious infections, on top of the illnesses that they went into hospital with. Those people and their families put their trust in Scotland’s health service but were badly let down, although not by the excellent and hard-working staff, I must say. It is a tragedy. It is shameful and disgraceful, and it is inexcusable, as it could have been avoided. That is what happens when a Government applies pressure for political reasons and totally disregards a report that warned about the high risk of infection for vulnerable patients undergoing treatment. Let us face it—the individuals who died came into hospital to try to get better but, alas, that did not happen.
The way that I see it, one of three things happened. First, someone was aware of the report, received it, filed it and did nothing, in which case we are looking at a case of criminal negligence. The second possibility is that someone looked at the report, did not understand it and did nothing with it, in which case we are looking at a case of criminal incompetence, if there is such a thing—I am not quite sure, but the SNP hierarchy of the period will be hoping that there is not. The third possibility is that someone looked at the report and understood exactly what it said, which is that the most vulnerable were at risk, but pressed on with the opening of the hospital regardless of the consequences, because it suited the political aims of the Scottish Government at the time. In that case, we are looking at just plain criminality.
None of these things would have happened if the Government of the day had put the patients and the most vulnerable in society at the heart of its decisions. The old motto of “safety first” was certainly not considered or applied; it was replaced with secrecy, denial, untruths and misinformation. I suggest that the adage should instead be, “It wasn’t me; it was a bad boy that done it and they ran away. If we were independent, we’d be all right.”
The situation is part of a wider pattern of non-accountability from this SNP Government, which is currently being taken to court for not disseminating information that was requested by its own Information Commissioner, despite having more than 10,000 extra civil servants to process such things since the pandemic. We should sack them all and hire 10,000 new nurses.
The Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs misled the Parliament but keeps her job because what she did was not quite severe enough—well, you can think what you want about that. I have a letter here from Shona Robison in which she claims that fiddling around with tax bands is not intended to fool anyone. Given that it is worth a mere nine pence a day to some of my constituents, is the Government actually having a laugh? That is not serious government—it is just keeping the dishes spinning and the hype going.
As the current Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care knows, every single one of my constituents knows that it is sometimes quicker to take a taxi to the emergency unit than to wait on an ambulance. He hides behind mutilated statistics that do not reflect the sorry state of NHS waiting lists. However, SNP members’ weak arguments in defence of the situation are always put in a nice, plausible way. They do that to con the public, because they think that the public do not know any better. They are treating my fellow Scots with contempt. Is it not true that the standard SNP story is to manipulate circumstances and data and then announce that it is doing a good job? I think that they actually believe their own tripe—sorry, hype.
This Parliament was not created to be like the Russian Kremlin. My fellow Scots deserve better. If patients are misled on how long they can expect to wait to receive a hip replacement, shame on the Scottish Government. If sick children are put at risk because certain politicians want to have a bit of good press, shame on them. The people in this SNP cabal, who have no interest in accountability or in improving things for anyone other than themselves, should have a really good look at themselves, because history will not judge them kindly.
16:07
Scotland is now confronting what many rightly regard to be one of the most serious healthcare failures in recent memory. After years of denial, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has now accepted that contaminated water systems at the Queen Elizabeth university hospital were, on the balance of probabilities, linked to serious infections in child cancer patients and to deaths. That admission did not come quickly, voluntarily or without a cost.
For years, families fought to have their experiences recognised. They did not ask for headlines or politics; they asked for honesty. Instead, they encountered delay, deflection and disbelief, while officials explored every possible explanation, except the one that was staring them in the face. Following closing submissions to the Scottish hospitals inquiry, the position has shifted dramatically. Although legal and political consequences will continue to unfold, our responsibility in the chamber is clear—to ensure transparency, accountability and justice for those who were failed.
For years, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde insisted that there was no causal link between the hospital environment and patient infections. That position has now been abandoned. In its closing submissions, the board accepted that it is more likely than not that some bloodstream infections were connected to the hospital environment—particularly the water system; that infection rates fell only after remedial work was carried out in 2018; and that whistleblowers were not adequately listened to. Those are not minor concessions; they fundamentally alter the narrative.
The hospital opened to patients just 10 days before a general election. At that time, Nicola Sturgeon was First Minister, John Swinney was Deputy First Minister and Shona Robison was Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport. For years, the SNP denied the problem and opposed a public inquiry into the hospital, before eventually U-turning. It ignored safety concerns and dismissed families who were grieving. Warnings were minimised and whistleblowers were called troublemakers rather than listened to.
Eighty-four child cancer patients were infected and at least two died. Police Scotland is now investigating multiple deaths that are linked to the QEUH campus. Those families deserve answers, not deflection, denial or silence. The SNP must be honest about who put pressure on NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde to open the hospital before it was safe to do so, what ministers knew and when they knew it.
This flagship Government project was a centrepiece of the SNP’s 2015 general election campaign. Frankly, no one believes that ministers had zero role in overseeing it or in making decisions. If that was the case, that would be gross negligence. Those who were responsible, whether in the Government or the health board, must be held to account.
However, this is not only about the actions of ministers; it is about culture. We have heard repeated evidence of a defensive and closed management culture, of clinicians being discouraged from putting concerns in writing, of senior experts being dismissed and of parents being reassured while wards were quietly closed around them.
Families have described being misled and dismissed while children became seriously ill. The father of victim Molly Cuddihy said that the health board was “warned for years” about those issues. That is not a system learning from mistakes; it is a system protecting itself. That is why the motion matters.
We now know that the hospital opened before it was ready. We know that microbial risks were identified, yet patients were admitted regardless. The First Minister has acknowledged that there were cultural problems at the health board and that families appear to have been lied to. That is significant, but acknowledgement is not accountability. The health secretary has done nothing to hold those same health bosses accountable, and he has ignored our call to put the board into special measures.
That is why the call for full disclosure and the preservation of all relevant communications is essential, not optional. Communications relating to water contamination, ventilation failures, the opening of the hospital and the handling of infections must be released in full.
No organisation should be above scrutiny, no reputation should come before patient safety and no family should have to fight for years to be believed. The families are not seeking scapegoats—they want recognition, change and assurance that this will never happen again. The greatest injustice of all would be to allow such a failure to be repeated. That is why, given her role as the then health secretary and later as the then First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon should come forward and make a personal statement to the Parliament setting out what she knew, what she was advised of and what actions were taken under her leadership. That is what our amendment calls for, and it is what the victims want.
Kimberly Darroch, the mother of 10-year-old Milly Main, who died after contracting an infection while being treated for leukaemia in the hospital, said:
“I do believe that Nicola Sturgeon knows something. My message to her is to come forward and be honest.”
I agree with Milly Main’s mother, and that is why I urge every MSP to support our amendment. This Parliament owes them nothing less.
16:13
I, too, extend my deepest sympathies to the families who are involved.
I speak in support of the cabinet secretary’s amendment, but I have to say that the fact that Labour has brought the motion today while Lord Brodie is considering the mass of material before him, with the ink on the final submissions and the statements barely dry, says a great deal about Labour’s priorities and desperate political agenda. I do not think that it is in any way appropriate for this Parliament or members of it to seek to interfere or intervene in that independent inquiry.
Will the member give way?
I do not think that I have time—I do not think that there is much time in hand.
The inquiry was set up under the Inquiries Act 2005, which is United Kingdom Government legislation. Last week in the chamber, our First Minister said:
“Lord Brodie must have the opportunity to consider and reflect on the evidence and to set out his conclusions.”—[Official Report, 22 January 2026; c 13.]
I completely agree with that.
I must say, as someone who represents a constituent involved in campaigning for health services in my region, who was the target of fabricated and unauthorised quotes on a Labour Party leaflet—which, incidentally, was still being delivered through letterboxes last week, despite Labour’s promise to withdraw it from circulation—
Will the member take an intervention?
No, I will not take any interventions. I think that you should apologise to the constituent.
Always speak through the chair, Ms Harper.
We certainly want the independent inquiry, as set up by the SNP’s health secretary at the time, to get to the truth of what happened at the Queen Elizabeth and at the Royal Hospital for Children and Young People. As the inquiry’s remit states, that will ensure that
“any past mistakes are not repeated in future NHS infrastructure projects”.
Without prejudicing that inquiry, I whole-heartedly welcome the acknowledgement before it by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde that the board’s response to and behaviour towards the whistleblowers who raised substantive and serious concerns were wholly unacceptable.
I am pleased that there has been a change in NHS GGC policies on how it responds to staff who raise issues of concern. I will not go into the specifics of what the inquiry has been looking at, but I encourage the Labour Party to consider the people who work on the front line in our health service and to see how it functions every hour of every day. If flaws, problems, challenges, issues, mistakes or miscalculations exist and impact on the delivery of a safe and patient-centred health service that serves our people, staff should and must be listened to; they should not be denigrated and ignored or have senior management question their professionalism.
I worked in the national health service and in healthcare in the USA for many years, as a registered nurse and clinical educator. I know that the plans and processes that are put in place can go wrong. What is meant to happen on paper is not always what happens in the real world of day-to-day healthcare. Through risk management processes, significant adverse event and near-miss reporting and root cause analysis review, steps are taken to put measures in place to identify, fix and learn from those issues. It is the staff who need to be the most respected and the most involved when it comes to that crucial function.
Without referring specifically to the on-going inquiry, I must say that, if a management team has found itself contacted by numerous whistleblowers on a single subject, it is clear that that team has badly managed its on-going relationship with staff, which should be at the core of the continuous improvement of our health service. That the end result of the breakdown of that relationship is, in the case of QEUH, an inquiry that has now lasted many years should be a lesson to every organisation in the country, but particularly in our health service, in how important listening to staff and whistleblowers is. It took courage and bravery for people such as Drs Redding, Peters and Inkster—health professionals who raised their concerns with management—to speak up and, as the board stated in front of Lord Brodie,
“it is accepted”
that the culture
“did not place appropriate emphasis on listening to staff and encouraging the raising of concerns.”
I ask any health service staff who are watching the debate—every single one of the staff who are, on behalf of our country, saving lives and making our society a healthier place to live in, whether they work in maintenance, cleaning, catering or nursing, or are allied health professionals or doctors—if they have concerns about patient safety, see something that needs reporting or hear something that does not sound right, to please speak up and report it, because we all want a health service where the thousands and thousands of people who are in our NHS are listened to. I hope that there is unanimity in the chamber at least on that point.
Will the member give way?
I am closing—that is it. Thank you, Presiding Officer.
16:18
Having listened to speeches in this debate, particularly from the Government’s side, it seems clear to me that the Government lives in fear of the cost of truth to our country, when it ought to be thinking about what the cost to our country is of lies and defence of misinformation.
Every family and every citizen of this country, when they are faced with the horrible circumstance of a relative, a friend or perhaps themselves being admitted to hospital in a crisis, wants some degree of certainty that the health service is equipped to meet their needs and save their lives. I cannot imagine the horror of realising not only that a child or relative has died, but that they died because of a system of failure, and because of lies and a lack of accountability.
That situation applies not only in the health service but across Government. It is a cultural problem in our country that has crept in slowly and almost imperceptibly over many years. Our country often tries to pride itself on being open and transparent. The Parliament was founded on those principles, and we created legislation such as the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 to cast a light on the workings of Government. In recent years, however, it has increasingly felt as though we are dealing with a clique or a closed shop. There seems to be a system of self-preservation for those at the top, whether in the Government or in the bureaucracy, that does not apply to those who are elected to serve in our democracy. It is a culture that looks inwards and that treats politics as a game of insider and outsider, in which the concerns of the insider happen to be more important than the people they are meant to serve. That cuts to the core of every aspect of what has gone wrong in the Queen Elizabeth university hospital.
Is an illustration of that not the number of insurance claims that have been settled in the health service? When I first entered Parliament, there were very few, but now there are tens of millions. There is a rush to offer compensation, but there is no rush for those who were responsible for the problem in the first place to be held accountable. Is that not part of the culture to which Mr Sweeney refers?
The member makes a very good point. To curtail and suppress things rather than holding people accountable, getting to the root cause of the problem and avoiding unnecessary consequences is a symptom of a wider disease. In many cases, those consequences include lives being lost unnecessarily.
I come from a shipbuilding background and I distinctly remember my first week at the shipyard. There was a huge sign above one of the sheds that said, “Lives depend on us doing our job right.” That is an important point to remember. In project management, there is a moral obligation to be accountable and honest, because the protection of human life is at the core of any big project, whether in healthcare, construction, aerospace or shipbuilding. Those are high-stakes projects, and there is a total responsibility to act with integrity at all levels in management and commissioning. If any perverse incentive exists to ensure that safety is overridden, it must be nipped in the bud, but that simply did not happen in this case.
We know that there were other expedient factors at play. We know that pressure existed. We know that the final product was not safe and that it caused harm to the public. It caused unnecessary death. Where is the accountability for that failure? It is no good just acknowledging it. Where is the system of accountability? Where is the deterrence so that such perverse behaviours do not occur again? As parliamentarians, and even as members of the public, how can we have confidence that that will not happen again? Whether we are talking about a ferry that does not work or a hospital that causes death, myriad other symptoms exist across the public sector in Scotland that are causes for concern and that are raised routinely in this Parliament. We must understand what the underlying culture is and how we can address it.
The protection and preservation of human life in our country should be our overriding concern. To simply be dismissed and told that what we are doing as parliamentarians in seeking to hold the Government to account in that regard is ultra vires is appalling to me. Can members of this Parliament not show some degree of pride in their work and in what they are meant to be doing? That is important to me and I hope that it is important to others.
Such complex projects involve many ethical dilemmas, but we must never compromise on standards or rush to meet deadlines by skipping quality or safety checks. There is an issue even with basic routine maintenance. When one of my colleagues in Glasgow, Councillor George Redmond, was admitted to the Glasgow royal infirmary, even the showers were not working. Basic infection control and prevention of disease measures are failing on an on-going basis in the city today. Where is the accountability for that failure? It is simply not good enough to say that we acknowledge that things might sometimes go wrong. Where is the root-cause analysis? Where is the escalation? Why does the cabinet secretary not have a chart on the wall of his office with daily and hourly updates in red pen to show what is being done to fix the problem? Where is the system of accountability?
We constantly have the circular feedback loop—the doom loop—involving health boards, integration joint boards, ministers and parliamentarians, but none of it ever results in consequences. It is in that respect that we need to question our role in public life. I hope that parliamentarians will think about that, regardless of the inquiry and what it concludes. Some matters are self-evident—they are certainly obvious to me, and they should be obvious to colleagues across the chamber.
16:25
I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate and to add my condolences to those who have lost loved ones. We must not lose focus on the patients, families and whistleblowers who have campaigned tirelessly for justice as part of the Scottish hospitals inquiry. The pain and suffering of patients at Queen Elizabeth university hospital and their families is unthinkable. Those who have lost loved ones and have subsequently fought to establish the truth have my full support.
It should not happen in our NHS. The patients deserve better. We, as parliamentarians, expect and demand better. Full transparency is required to ensure that those who are impacted get the answers that they deserve. I am therefore grateful to Lord Brodie and the wider inquiry for ensuring that the voices of patients and their families are heard. I also welcome the First Minister’s commitment to acting on Lord Brodie’s recommendations when the full report is published.
I will use some of my time in this debate to mention those who are impacted by the actions of Sam Eljamel during his employment as a surgeon at NHS Tayside between 1995 and 2014. Many of Mr Eljamel’s former patients are constituents of mine, and a number of colleagues in the chamber also represent those who are impacted by the actions of that former employee at Ninewells hospital in my constituency.
It is crucial that every effort is made to ensure that those who are living with the consequences of Mr Eljamel’s actions get the answers that they deserve. I was therefore pleased that the Scottish Government established a public inquiry and an independent clinical review to give patients the option of a personalised review of their care, which would not have happened if there had been a public inquiry alone.
Does that not specifically illustrate the problem? The whistleblower came forward in 2009, Eljamel was allowed to leave in 2013, and the inquiry was started only in 2024. That speaks to our problem.
It absolutely speaks to why it is important that those who have been impacted, some of whom are my constituents and some of whom I know personally, get the answers that they fully deserve.
It is to be welcomed that the independent clinical reviews were able to take place alongside the independent inquiry. The Government had to work hard for that to happen. As we all know, a public inquiry will tend to look at generalities, whereas the clinical reviews looked at what happened to many of Mr Eljamel’s patients specifically. That is good. My colleagues in Tayside—for example, Liz Smith—have worked well on the issue on a non-party-political basis. That is important.
I welcome the Hon Lord Weir and Professor Stephen Wigmore as chairs of the public inquiry and the independent clinical reviews respectively, and I note that Professor Wigmore is supported by expert neurosurgeons.
The health secretary has met a number of former patients and I understand that he was left in no doubt about the anger and pain that have been caused. I welcome his engagement. I emphasise once more that we must not lose focus on the patients and their families.
The Scottish NHS is something that we should all be extremely proud of. All of us in the chamber and everyone who is watching across the country will have benefited enormously from the work of our incredible NHS workforce, and I take this opportunity to thank all our NHS staff, who work tirelessly every day. They are a credit to Scotland. However, as we have heard today, sometimes things do not go as planned. When that happens—it is important to note that that is in a small minority of cases—it is imperative that those who are impacted get the answers that they deserve.
In the most serious cases, such as that of Sam Eljamel at NHS Tayside and those at the Queen Elizabeth university hospital, a public inquiry allows for an independent review to get answers on behalf of patients, with recommendations to ensure that it never happens again and to restore faith in our NHS that might have been lost as a consequence. The independence of a public inquiry is paramount.
I reiterate my support for full transparency in all the cases that have been mentioned in the chamber today. When I was Minister for Parliamentary Business, I introduced the bill that became the Lobbying (Scotland) Act 2016 to ensure openness and accountability, which are the founding principles of our national Parliament. Ten years on, I welcome the fact that the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee is considering how the 2016 act is working in practice. The same principles of openness and accountability must apply to all public bodies, including our NHS, and that is exactly why the Scottish Government established the independent public inquiries into the cases that I have spoken about. I stress again the importance of the independence of that process.
The Labour motion cannot be supported by Parliament. It explicitly calls on the Parliament to undermine the public inquiry by immediately releasing information prior to Lord Brodie publishing his final report. Not only would that be disrespectful to Lord Brodie, but it would potentially be illegal and do an injustice to the patients, families and whistleblowers who should be at the centre of all our thoughts today.
16:31
Those last few comments from Joe FitzPatrick were absolute nonsense. The SNP talks about this motion that is before Scotland’s Parliament being illegal. Its members say that we are somehow breaking the law by discussing the issue, although it is being discussed across the country on the news channels and in the newspapers. The idea that Scotland’s Parliament somehow has to haud its wheesht and that we should not talk about such things is utterly ridiculous.
I have watched the Scottish National Party in opposition. I am old enough to remember when it was in opposition here, and I have watched it close up as an Opposition party at Westminster. Not for one minute would Neil Gray, his colleagues at Westminster, or those in the earlier sessions of this Parliament, when there was a Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition, have allowed a Government to do the things that the current Government is being accused of.
In the interest of accuracy, and lest the member has misunderstood what I understood Joe FitzPatrick said, he suggested not that it was illegal for the Parliament to discuss those matters but that it might be illegal for the Government to follow the advice in the motion.
Yes—he said the motion.
Emma Harper surpassed herself with what she said. I have never heard such nonsense. Paul Sweeney is right. What kind of self-respecting parliamentarian begins to draw boundaries around the things that the Parliament is going to consider? It is just ridiculous.
The convener of the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee spent more than half of her speech erecting a barrier to prevent ministers from being held accountable by the Parliament, and we heard more of that from Joe FitzPatrick. That is typical SNP behaviour. Every time the SNP gets into scandalous difficulty, it erects a barrier and puts up a defence by saying, “Oh, let’s not be political; let’s be above party politics.” That is very far from the culture of the SNP when it is in opposition, and it should be very far from the culture of those in opposition and, indeed, from the culture of the Parliament if we are to take ourselves seriously as parliamentarians, as Paul Sweeney suggested.
This is a political matter. The scandal did not happen by accident. It happened because a Government that, to be frank, has been in power for far too long, has stopped listening or questioning itself, has drunk the Kool-Aid and is dining out on its own propaganda. That is the legacy that the SNP Government leaves.
The Queen Elizabeth university hospital should have been a place of safety. Instead, for far too many families, it became a place of fear, infection and unimaginable loss. Families were told nothing. They were lied to, in fact, which is worse than nothing. The clinicians whom the leader of the Labour Party named during this debate stood up and spoke up, and they were brave. However, beyond being ignored, they were vilified and marginalised. Warnings were downplayed and reports were ignored.
One cannot help but conclude that the ministers in this Government—from that time, and even today—are either grotesquely incompetent or not telling the truth. Members can take their choice.
Several SNP members have said that we must listen to the voices of doctors. At the start of my contribution I referenced three doctors, and it is because of them that we are where we are today in terms of making progress. Dr Redding, Dr Peters and Dr Inkster say that they are not satisfied with the conditions in the here and now. Why are they being ignored again, as they have been for the past 10 years, when they have been proven to be right and the Government has been proven to be wrong?
Anas Sarwar is right to raise what he raises. It is for the very simple reason that whistleblowing is not respected by this Government. I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests. The SNP talks a good game about whistleblowers, but it does not listen to them. I have heard the Deputy First Minister denigrate people who have acted as whistleblowers about areas within her responsibilities.
Neil Gray always says the right words, but nothing happens and the culture does not change. NHS Tayside is a very good example. This issue is another, and there are examples all across public services in Scotland. Wonderful, decent people work in the public services in this country, and they often see and experience things that cause them to raise concerns, and they are then victimised for speaking up. The establishment in those public services closes ranks, because its approach is all about reputational damage limitation. That is the problem at the heart of our public services—an unhealthy attitude towards whistleblowing, truth telling and candour.
The fact of the matter is that—these words are significant—“pressure was applied”. Whatever the health board says now—at whomever’s behest—to cover up more of the trails that have led us to this point, pressure was applied. That was not talk about pressure within the organisation; to apply pressure suggests something external.
Let us be absolutely clear that this whole episode is not a freak occurrence and it is not bad luck. It is the foreseeable consequence of decisions that were taken at the top, and that must extend to the Scottish ministers, driven by political priorities not patient safety. Yes, there was an election. Yes, there was a deadline. Yes, there was going to be a grand opening, similar to the grand launch of the ferries, with painted-on windows and fabricated funnels or whatever it was—another con trick.
Will the member take an intervention?
I wish that I could, but time does not allow.
Time is racing, Mr Kerr.
I fundamentally believe that at the heart of all this lie an arrogance, a corruption, a dishonesty and a culture in which there is disregard—in fact, it goes beyond disrespect—for those who blow the whistle.
Mr Kerr, you will need to conclude.
This Government is morally bankrupt. For the sake of Scotland, we must get it out of office.
16:38
I begin by sending my heartfelt condolences to the families affected, especially those with children. As a parent and grandparent, I cannot imagine their pain and loss, which I know will have no end.
I thank those who fought for a full determination of what happened at the Queen Elizabeth university hospital. I have challenged Anas Sarwar on rerunning a live inquiry that is structured strictly in terms of the Inquiries Act 2005 and the Inquiries (Scotland) Rules 2007. It has taken five years, and that period was no doubt extended by the Covid pandemic. Evidence to the inquiry has just concluded with parties’ closing statements. I submit that the inquiry’s approach has been thorough. Its report is to be issued later this year.
Commentary on the evidence is unavoidable, but commentary on the outcome is not helpful; for me, it undermines confidence in the independent inquiry process. I despair at anyone politicising this extremely distressful and serious issue, so I repeat that the cabinet secretary decides the remit and the terms of reference, consulting the appointed inquiry chair on those terms of reference before they are finalised and published. That is the end of the Government’s involvement in the running of the inquiry. From then on, the chair is wholly responsible for conducting the investigation within that agreed remit and those references.
There is a robust legal statutory framework to guarantee, in the interests of everyone, the independence of a public inquiry. This inquiry is chaired by Lord Brodie, who is a judge of the inner house, operating independently, but with the authority to call witnesses and review evidence, including from Government ministers, and to compel attendance of witnesses. I therefore take issue with the part of the Labour motion that says:
“recognises that … many serious questions remain regarding the decision-making process and the role of the Scottish Government”
and
“considers that political decision making should be considered by the inquiry”.
In fact, Anas Sarwar recently called for John Swinney and Nicola Sturgeon to give evidence to the inquiry. That is political interference. Is Anas Sarwar suggesting that Lord Brodie has failed to call witnesses, and that his chairmanship is questionable or inadequate and not independent of politics?
Lord Brodie can call whom he wants and decide what documents and exchanges he sees, and he can compel any witness that he wants to come to the inquiry. The question in the chamber is, therefore: does the Parliament have confidence in Lord Brodie? That is a very serious question. Current political commentary on whom to ultimately blame is unavoidable, and I accept that—[Interruption.]
This is nonsense.
I will take an intervention—[Interruption.]
Is the member actually saying that Lord Brodie is incompetent to chair the inquiry?
Of course we are not suggesting that the judge is incompetent. What we are pointing to is the incompetence of the Government in not being able to give straight answers to straight questions.
What we are hearing is another speech from the same briefing; it is whataboutery—
Mr Kerr, I think that Ms Grahame has got the gist.
I am trying to speak with my legal hat on—[Interruption.]
If Anas Sarwar is saying that certain witnesses should have been called and have not been called, that, for me, is a challenge to Lord Brodie. How can it not be?
I have said—[Interruption.]
Members, could we please—
I hope that I did not overhear some—
I did not hear anything—I am just hearing a lot of noise. I would like to hear the member who has the floor, and that is Christine Grahame. Please continue, Ms Grahame.
I think that I heard something highly critical of Lord Brodie; I hope that the official report staff picked it up.
Current political commentary on whom to ultimately blame is unavoidable—I accept that—but we should not be rerunning issues.
I want to be strict, I want people to be blamed and I want the matter to be sorted, but that should happen in the inquiry and not in the heat of political debate in the chamber.
The legal framework establishes independence, and the chair is independent, so I find it disgraceful that members—not only Mr Sarwar, but others in the chamber—seem to be undermining the entire independence of the process. That does a total disservice to grieving people.
We move to closing speeches. I call Gillian Mackay to close on behalf of the Scottish Greens—[Interruption.]
I ask members just to listen. I am the chair, and I find it really discourteous to have all this backchat when I am speaking. I do not know how other members must feel.
I call Gillian Mackay, who is joining us remotely.
16:43
We have heard many times from Government that we need to let the Scottish hospitals inquiry do its work, and to respect its outcome. I absolutely agree with that. Only then can we learn the lessons of what went wrong and how we can make sure that it never happens again.
However, I believe that we need to take action now to restore confidence in the hospital and in the board. We need to communicate clearly and reassuringly to patients, families and staff that the hospital is safe. We need to let people know that if they raise concerns, those will be taken seriously. We need to reassure patients and their families that if they seek treatment from NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, they will be cared for by its incredibly hard-working and compassionate staff.
We also need to look to the future and consider how we ensure that the whole sorry episode is not repeated.
I whole-heartedly welcome the comments from Gillian Mackay. On that basis, will she accept that, in order to reassure families and patients at the Queen Elizabeth, it is important that the Government clarifies whether the hospital and all the wards have been validated and are safe? Will she also agree that the concerns that those three doctors are raising should be listened to right now?
It is critical that we ensure that people have confidence that, if they attend appointments at the Queen Elizabeth university hospital, it is safe. We also need to ensure that whistleblowing is safe, which I will come back to later in my contribution.
With new sites planned, such as University hospital Monklands in my region, we need to restore public confidence in the processes and reassure people that the new hospitals will be fully up to standard. We need to improve the culture across all boards because, as the Labour motion notes, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde is not the only one to have been hit by scandal. There are consistent issues around governance and whistleblowing, with staff not being taken seriously. We have lots of policies and procedures around whistleblowing but, clearly, that does not always translate to staff feeling listened to or safe to raise concerns. Many will still be concerned about their jobs and careers.
Clearly, this is an emotive subject and it has been an emotional debate. Patients and families have experienced trauma and suffering in a place where they should have felt safe. Tensions are running high, which is understandable, but what is most important is that we learn from this and ensure that it never happens again. Yes, we have to get to the bottom of what went wrong, and yes, there should be political accountability, but we do not serve the interests of the families that are at the heart of it when we play political point scoring with their stories. I fear that some of them will be disappointed with some of what has happened in this debate.
The privacy of those who have suffered should also always be respected. Their stories should be told if they want them to be, in order to show the impact that the scandal has had on them, but in a way that respects their trauma and does not compound it. We will no doubt continue to debate this matter in Parliament, and I urge members to think about their tone and how they speak about those very personal and painful experiences.
The inquiry has taken a trauma-informed approach, which is important, because the families have suffered enough. I look forward to the publication of the inquiry’s final report so that the families can get the answers that they deserve. As others have said, I hope that it will bring some level of peace, although it will never make up for what they have endured.
That work is on-going, but the Government and the board can act now to reassure patients, families and staff. I hope that, in his closing remarks, the cabinet secretary can confirm that the hospital is safe. It is vital that that message is not lost in the revelations about infections and scandals.
Anyone who is unwell should feel entirely confident about seeking help. No one should be put off treatment because they are worried about a hospital making them ill. However, my saying that will not make a difference, and both the board and the Government have a lot of work to do to restore the trust that has been broken.
Staff will also have been traumatised by finding out that the building where they work and where they care for patients was not safe. To give their patients the best possible care, they need to know that their environment is not a risk to them. The staff that raised concerns have been betrayed by the board and, despite the board’s admission of guilt, it will take some time to address the hurt and repair the rift. We must not lose sight of the fact that, throughout the episode, clinical staff have tried to do what is best for their patients. They have cared for them to the best of their ability and tried to raise concerns when the building that they were working in made that impossible. I pay testament to the doctors, nurses and other clinical staff who have worked hard for their patients in trying circumstances.
Given the huge public interest in the issue, my amendment seeks to ensure that no family will be able to be identified through the release of materials unless they wish to be. Some families have chosen to come forward and share their stories and they should be commended and supported, but those who either have not wanted to do that or do not feel able to should also be respected. My amendment also seeks to acknowledge the pain of patients and their families, while urging the Scottish Government to restore confidence in the services that are being delivered at the Queen Elizabeth university hospital. I hope that members will support my amendment at decision time.
I call Jackson Carlaw to close on behalf of the Scottish Conservatives.
16:48
The Queen Elizabeth university hospital is my hospital. I have been treated there. My 94-year-old mother’s life has been saved there several times. Constituents of mine have been born in that hospital. Some have been treated there. Some have died. However, anybody who dies in that hospital should die because of the underlying conditions that led them there and not because of the failings in the hospital itself.
I come to the debate today with, frankly, a cold fury. If mesh was the scandal of the previous parliamentary session, I agree entirely with what Anas Sarwar said in the devastating and forensic attack with which he opened the debate: the way that this matter has been handled has been the health scandal of this parliamentary session. Party politics aside, I thank him for the unrelenting focus that he has continued to bring to the issue throughout this session.
I say to Nicola Sturgeon that, if she can find the time to write a memoir about her time in Government, she should consider it her duty to find the time to contribute to our consideration of these matters and to answer for one of the greatest scandals of that time in Government.
I will pick up a point that Paul Sweeney made. I think that culture absolutely underpins all of this. Way before this scandal, when I spoke on health between 2007 and 2016, I pointed to the increasing culture of cover-up within the health service that resulted from the practice of having patients sign non-disclosure agreements and accept compensation without proper accountability ever being traced or individuals being held to account for their actions. That has led to the very scandal that we find ourselves facing now.
In January 2019, when Jeane Freeman announced that, following the deaths of patients, there would be a review of the Queen Elizabeth university hospital’s building, design, commissioning and construction, as well as other related issues and how they contributed to effective infection control, I stood here as acting leader of my party and put this question to the First Minister:
“Last year, Professor Alison Britton published her findings on the way in which all future national health service reviews should be conducted and made 46 key recommendations. Will the First Minister confirm that the review into the Queen Elizabeth university hospital will meet those tests?”—[Official Report, 24 January 2019; c 10.]
The First Minister confirmed that it would. Transparency, listening to patients and telling people what went on was at the heart of Professor Alison Britton’s recommendations. What a travesty and a sham it is to argue that those recommendations have been implemented when we know that the health board in Glasgow lied, lied and lied again to patients for years, rather than answering or holding itself to account for the scandal that it brought about.
The member is making a powerful speech. Does he agree that truth does not care about power or ideology but is perpetual? I believe that the truth is that the person who applied pressure to put schedule and cost over safety was guilty of a criminal act. Does he agree?
I do, and I want to go further. In 2019, at First Minister’s questions, I pointed to inconsistencies in Jeane Freeman’s statement. First, on the radio, she said that she did not know about a boy’s death or the investigation that took place. Then, she suddenly decided that she knew about the boy’s death, but did not know about the investigation. The First Minister tried to tell us that those were reconcilable contradictions and that, in her view, the health secretary took the appropriate action.
This afternoon, I have heard SNP members repeatedly talk about the sanctity of the public inquiry being held by Lord Brodie. One would think that they had called for it, but they did not. SNP members opposed the public inquiry and supported Jeane Freeman, who, when asked whether there should be a public inquiry, said:
“My straightforward answer is the one that I have given before: no, I do not agree”,—[Official Report, 11 September 2019; c 33.]
and that she did not believe that a public inquiry would add to our understanding of this issue. So spare me the attempts to hide behind a public inquiry now, in the face of the evidence that we have before us.
I do not think that there is any issue before this Parliament that is more horrendous than the one that we have experienced at the Queen Elizabeth university hospital. When we look at the contributions of the parents as they react to the evidence that has unfolded, we really should, as a Parliament, be totally ashamed.
I see that the First Minister has entered the chamber. I will conclude with a thought that has rested with me since his contribution at First Minister’s questions. In response to Russell Findlay, when asked whether anybody in the Government had exerted pressure, the First Minister said that the short answer was no. The only way that he could know that—the only way that he could be certain of that, and the only way in which he could stand before Parliament and tell us that—is if he had asked the people who said that pressure had been applied who it was that had applied the pressure. The First Minister could not know just by standing before us that no official, minister or member of his party had sought to apply pressure. He could only know it if he knows who it was that applied the pressure.
Subsequently, we are being told that the pressure was applied by the health board on itself. That is just a ridiculous assertion. Pressure is not something that is applied amorphously; pressure is applied by an individual. If the First Minister can say that it was not anybody in his Government, he must know who it was. If he has not asked who it was, he should have done so, and the public and this Parliament should be told.
I think that we are absolutely right to focus on this debate today and to support the motion before Parliament.
16:54
As the debate draws to a close, I will return to talking about those affected by the matters that are before the inquiry. Families who lost loved ones, patients who endured harm and staff who spoke up, despite personal risk, have shown courage that deserves our deepest respect. Their testimony has been brave, often harrowing, and it is because of them that the issues are finally receiving full and independent scrutiny. I have reached out to those patients and families through their legal representatives and offered them all the opportunity to meet me to share their experiences and concerns.
The Scottish ministers recognise all those who are adversely impacted by the matters that the inquiry is examining. Recognising that harm is precisely why the Government established a statutory independent, judge-led public inquiry to uncover the full truth and ensure that lessons are learned.
It is vital that we reaffirm a principle at the heart of this discussion—the independence of the inquiry. The powers that have been entrusted to Lord Brodie under the Inquiries Act 2005 protect this process from any direction or influence by ministers or by the Parliament. That independence is not a technicality; it is what allows families to have confidence that every decision, every document and every witness is assessed on the evidence.
We have provided the inquiry with all evidence that is relevant to its terms of reference. Although our submissions have been substantial, it must be recognised that they alone do not provide the full picture of events. The totality of the information from all core participants is before Lord Brodie, who must now be given the space to deliberate and to establish what happened, why it happened and what must change.
As counsel and expert witnesses have confirmed, the hospital operates under strengthened oversight, with significant improvements in safety systems and clinical governance.
Has a full safety audit of the hospital been carried out since the scandal erupted?
Again, these matters are before the inquiry. Evidence has been sought and led, and it would be wrong to come to conclusions.
Will the cabinet secretary give way?
Brian Whittle rose—
Bear with me—I am setting out the situation as to the current safety of the hospital. Delivering safe, effective and person-centred care to our patients in a clean and well-maintained environment—
Will the cabinet secretary give way?
Let me finish my point.
That is of the utmost importance to the Scottish Government, and it remains our priority.
To the questions from Gillian Mackay and other colleagues about the public’s confidence that the hospital is safe, I can give assurance for two reasons. The first is the evidence that was led by the independent witness Mr Poplett. Secondly, I sought assurances in that regard and asked Healthcare Improvement Scotland in March last year to conduct a further review of the progress that is being made by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde in meeting the health and safety requirements and recommendations that were set out in the action plan from the Queen Elizabeth university hospital assurance of infection prevention and control inspection of June 2022.
In addition, there was a focused inspection of the emergency department in July 2024 as part of the wider NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde emergency department review, which resulted in a number of actions that have also been addressed. Healthcare Improvement Scotland subsequently confirmed that it was reassured by the response to that review by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, which assurance has continued through a series of further inspections.
Let me also be clear that staff who raise concerns, often in extremely difficult circumstances, must be protected and heard. I absolutely agree with that. I have set that out clearly. Strong whistleblowing arrangements are essential to ensuring that, when concerns arise, they lead to action. Policy measures are in place to support that, including the NHS Scotland whistleblowing policy, set against the national whistleblowing standards and independent national whistleblowing officer role, which is delivered by the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman. There is an independent advice line and dedicated whistleblowing champions in each health board to ensure that staff are encouraged and supported to speak up.
Last week, I met the Patient Safety Commissioner, and, next week, I will meet the independent national whistleblowing officer to discuss relevant matters and demonstrate my support for those important roles and the ways in which they contribute to public service. I give the Parliament an absolute assurance about my expectation and the Government’s expectation regarding the culture that governs our national health service.
When the final report is published, the Government will consider its findings with the seriousness that they demand. We will consider those recommendations in full when they are published. We have fully complied with the independent public inquiry and we have supplied all information to it, as should be expected. If further information or evidence is required by the independent inquiry, we will, of course, comply with that.
The families who were affected by these events deserve clarity, accountability and lasting change, and I reaffirm my commitment to that.
17:00
Children have died, adults have died and families are grieving. I say to Emma Harper: hard-working staff did come forward and share their concerns, but they were bullied, ignored and let down.
This is the worst scandal in the current session of the Scottish Parliament, but it could so easily have been avoided. I take members back to December 2007, when at least 143 patients contracted clostridium difficile at the Vale of Leven hospital. C diff was found to be a contributory factor in at least 34 of those patients’ deaths. Just like in the Queen Elizabeth university hospital, those patients went into hospital expecting to get better, but they never came out.
The families rightly campaigned for a public inquiry, and the inquiry that was chaired by Lord MacLean published its report in November 2014, six months before the Queen Elizabeth university hospital opened. The report made a series of recommendations on everything from governance to the management of infection control. The tragedy that affected so many of my constituents at the Vale of Leven could have been avoided, and that is also so true for the Queen Elizabeth university hospital.
The Scottish Government said at the time that lessons would be learned. However, six months later, it opened a new hospital when it was clearly not safe to do so, and the consequences have been devastating. The Scottish Government accepted responsibility for what happened at the Vale of Leven, stating:
“we apologise unreservedly for the suffering and loss caused. We accept in full all of the report's recommendations.”
The statement continued:
“we can ensure structures and mechanisms are in place to make sure that what happened at the VOLH does not happen anywhere else in future.”
A month after that comment, in February 2015, I questioned the then Cabinet Secretary for Health, Wellbeing and Sport, Shona Robison, at the Health and Sport Committee. I asked her whether, in light of the Vale of Leven hospital inquiry report, an independent audit of the Queen Elizabeth university hospital had been carried out. That was a recommendation that the Government had accepted. After some pressing, she said:
“If it has not taken place, it will. We will check that.”—[Official Report, Health and Sport Committee, 24 February 2015; c 32.]
In April 2015, just before the Queen Elizabeth university hospital opened, Shona Robison wrote to me claiming that there was no need for an independent audit or to follow the MacLean recommendation because there was robust monitoring and reporting in place. There was even a risk register. Will the cabinet secretary tell us whether the risk register identified any of the problems with water or ventilation that existed at the time? I suspect not. Had Shona Robison commissioned the independent audit, as recommended by the MacLean inquiry that the Government was so keen to learn lessons from, we would not be debating the issue today, and families would not be grieving the loss of loved ones.
Was it criminal negligence or incompetence? There is no getting away from the fact that senior Government ministers chose not to have the new hospital inspected, which had deadly consequences. The MacLean report also recommended robust reporting systems for infection monitoring.
At that same committee hearing in 2015, Shona Robison told me:
“I get alerted straight away about C diff cases or any other infection in hospitals in Glasgow, in Clyde or elsewhere, because the monitoring systems work.”—[Official Report, Health and Sport Committee, 24 February 2015; c 27.]
I know that, because it was one of the issues arising from the C diff outbreak at the Vale of Leven. Whenever a healthcare infection incident assessment tool—otherwise known as a HIIAT—is red, the cabinet secretary is automatically notified. In June 2017, when a HIIAT red warning was issued at the Queen Elizabeth university hospital, Shona Robison would have been informed. What did she do?
In January 2018, such was the complacency that Shona Robison accused Anas Sarwar of talking down the hospital. This is what she said:
“It is outrageous that he is talking down our first class state-of-the-art hospital”. —[Official Report, 24 January 2018; c 12.]
She had the HIIAT report six months earlier, she misled the Parliament, and children had already died. Again, I have to ask: was it criminal negligence or was it incompetence?
From the moment that the Queen Elizabeth university hospital opened, it was clear to those with knowledge of infection control that the water and ventilation systems were not adequate. Brave doctors risked their careers to raise their concerns, but they were bullied, sidelined and ignored.
The health board has now admitted that it opened the hospital too early because pressure was applied. Shortly before John Swinney appeared on national TV, the health board clarified that it was internal pressure. Really? If you know anything about the relationship between the health board and the Scottish Government, you know that the pressure would have been external to the health board; it would have come from ministers, or civil servants on behalf of ministers. I therefore repeat the question that Anas Sarwar asked at the beginning of the debate: who applied that pressure? We need answers from the Government.
In April 2015, when the hospital opened, we were weeks away from a general election—what a coincidence. For months in advance of that, ministers boasted in the chamber that it was a flagship Scottish Government project. Now, it has nothing to do with them; it is the health board’s fault.
I have been around here for a long time, so I know that the SNP Government has a fondness for announcements—every Government does—and we have seen that. Stephen Kerr was right to remind us that it was Nicola Sturgeon who launched a ferry with painted-on windows that is yet to sail. In this case, a hospital was opened too early, and people died.
Let me say to the cabinet secretary: stop the secrecy, and release all the documentation that covered political decision making. Most important of all, the cabinet secretary must also ensure the safety of the hospital today—because we know that not all of the hospital has been validated as safe. Counsel to the inquiry, Fred Mackintosh, urged the health board to act now, and not to wait for the findings of the inquiry. It would therefore be a gross dereliction of duty on the part of the cabinet secretary to risk patient safety: he needs to act on that now.
I am grateful to the First Minister for joining us, because if the cabinet secretary will not act, will the First Minister do so? We owe it to the families, the hard-working staff, and future patients.
I urge members to support the Labour motion and the amendments from the Greens and the Conservatives, but to reject the SNP amendment, which is about doing nothing, and continuing the secrecy and cover up.
That concludes the debate on the role of political decision making in NHS scandals.
It is time to move on to the next item of business. I will allow a moment or two for members on the front benches to arrange themselves.
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