SNP ‘COVER-UP’ ON CARE HOMES
Health Secretary under fire over lack of clarity about testing of patients moved out of hospitals
KEY details about how Covid-19 has spread through Scotland’s care homes have been ‘covered up’ by the SNP, it was claimed yesterday.
Health Secretary Jeane Freeman admitted last week that 921 patients were moved from hospitals into care homes in March, but she has failed to reveal how many of them were first tested for coronavirus.
A long line of other questions have so far gone unanswered, including how many of the patients entering nursing homes were subsequently found to have the virus, how many died and how many entered facilities where there were outbreaks of Covid 19.
The Scottish Government yesterday confirmed its main health body does hold information about how many of the patients transferred from hospitals into care homes in March were tested first.
Miss Freeman pledged that the information ‘will be made public’, but did not say when. She also yesterday signalled she now believes the decision not to test all patients before moving them may have been a mistake.
Scottish Conservatives health spokesman Miles Briggs said: ‘All of this should be made available and I don’t think the Cabinet Sec‘swept retary or the First Minister can hide behind patient confidentiality on this one.
‘It has got to be made public and they have got to start telling us if proper safeguards, such as testing, have been put in place first.
‘Increasingly, people are starting to feel like we have seen a cover up. Information is not being provided to MSPs and, when it is, it has been found to be inaccurate and the Health Secretary has had to apologise.
‘The care home element of this crisis is a national scandal and ministers will have to answer why precautions were not put in place.’
Mr Briggs said families of people who have died of coronavirus are increasingly contacting MSPs for answers, and says it cannot be
under the carpet’. Care homes have seen 46 per cent of all deaths from the virus.
In each of the past four weeks, more than half of all Covid-19 deaths have been in care homes. Opponents say they fear the SNP’s policy of moving patients out of hospitals and into homes may have worsened the crisis.
Labour MSP Neil Findlay yesterday highlighted that Miss Freeman previously said in response to a written question that the Government ‘does not hold information on the number of patients who may have died after discharge from hospital’.
The Government revealed last week that 921 patients were released from hospitals into care homes in March – the first month of the coronavirus crisis in Scotland.
Miss Freeman apologised following the release of the figure, as it was around three times higher than she had initially suggested.
It was not until April 21 that a policy for mandatory testing of all new care home residents was announced by the Government.
The Scottish Daily Mail has repeatedly asked the Government for figures showing how many patients moved from hospital had one or two negative tests for coronavirus first.
In a statement, the Government initially said it does not hold information about patient care. It later confirmed the information is held by one of its bodies, Public Health Scotland, as well as NHS boards.
Asked about the number of patients who were tested before being moved, as well as how many were moved to care homes with a live outbreak and how many were subsequently found to have the virus, Miss Freeman said: ‘That data is held by Public Health Scotland but it is held in more than one format so they are working right now to get the detailed answers to your questions in a way that is publishable and that they are confident is accurate.
‘We do want to publish as much information as we can all of the time. We have increased that over the weeks that have gone by. But the data that we publish needs to be statistically sound and robustly checked in order to be data you can rely on, as well as us.’
She was unable to give any details on how many patients were moved from hospital to care homes in April, but said they are due to be published ‘towards the end of May’.
Miss Freeman said the decision to transfer patients from hospital to care homes in March was based on the projection that 80 per cent of the population could be infected and 4 per cent of them could be
‘Information is not being provided’
hospitalised, and was designed to ensure the NHS was not overwhelmed. She added: ‘If I had known everything I know now, we may have made different decisions about whether or not every patient who was being discharged from hospital who was a Covid patient was tested to ensure they were negative.
‘What is the case is that they were discharged from hospital because they were clinically well.’
Miss Freeman also yesterday backed calls for a review of the way the social care system operates when the coronavirus crisis has passed.
She said: ‘It has shone a light on a number of areas where there have been improvements we want to hold onto and other areas where we want to look for improvements in future.’
Robert Kilgour, executive chairman of Renaissance Care, said: ‘If it is a genuine cross-sector review, I would welcome that and engage with that.
‘But it has to be a genuine review and not a kangaroo court to beat up the independent sector.’