Public conf idence hit by health shambles

IN these long months of lockdown, those deemed to be most at risk of contracting Covid-19 have suffered more than most.

Confined to their homes, they were denied the privileges others have enjoyed, from outdoor exercise to meeting other households.

So one can only imagine the distress of the 18,000 ‘shielding’ Scots who were given the wrong date for when it would be safe to go outside.

They were informed in an erroneous letter that they would be able to leave their homes from yesterday, when the actual date agreed by health experts was June 18.

Clarification was only posted last week when the disparity came to light, dashing the hopes of a vulnerable community who have become virtual prisoners.

Nicola Sturgeon resisted Conservative calls yesterday for Health Secretary Jeane Freeman to leave her post over this shambles and a series of other blunders.

Indeed, she indicated that the party was guilty of shameless politicking of a kind that she insists she has avoided over the course of this pandemic.

And yet our tolerance of political mistakes should not be unquestioning and unlimited: that’s not how a modern parliamentary democracy works.

Accountability is key if the public are to have any faith at all in the decisions made by policy-makers – and the Conservatives are right to highlight Miss Freeman’s ‘dismal performance’.

Testing has fallen far below capacity and we still don’t know when hospital staff will be routinely tested for Covid-19.

The disaster in our care homes is the biggest public health scandal of modern times, and it unfolded on Miss Freeman’s watch.

The elderly and frail were sent into residential care without having been tested, accelerating the spread of the disease and claiming hundreds of victims.

Nor have the existing problems in the health portfolio gone away, from allegations of water contamination linked to the deaths of children at a flagship Glasgow hospital, to the delays in the opening of the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh. Miss Sturgeon backed her Health Secretary when directly challenged on Miss Freeman’s future yesterday, saying it would be wrong to drop her from her team at such a critical time.

It’s her call – but public confidence in a time of crisis is a precious commodity.

How much longer can a minister who has made so many fundamental errors remain in post?