Freeman denies hiding truth

It is “nonsense” to suggest the Scottish Government has been trying to hide the scale of the problem of the spread of coronavirus in hospitals, Health Secretary Jeane Freeman has said.

More than 900 patients have caught the disease in non-coronavirus wards, with at least 218 dying.

Ms Freeman has been accused of keeping the true figure a secret “for as long as possible” after stating on Thursday there were only 125 “incidents” of suspected Covid-19 transmission in hospital.

She said at a briefing yesterday that the discrepancy between the figures could be explained by the need to validate whether patients had acquired the virus in hospital or were already incubating it when they were admitted.

Asked her response to accusations from opponents of trying to hide the scale of the problem, she replied: “Absolutely not. I’m not trying to conceal anything.

She added: “When the figures that have been released are validated we will release those figures... but the idea that we are hiding or concealing anything is quite frankly nonsense.”

Ms Freeman was asked to explain the discrepancy between the number of incidents involving Covid-19 cases in hospitals and the number of patients affected.

She said: “125 is the correct number of incidents, 121 of them have now been closed and 908 is the correct number of patients who have been affected, but now the data has to be validated to try and understand how many of those individuals acquired that infection in hospital and how many were already incubating the virus on admission...”

Scottish Labour has called for an independent investigation into the spread of coronavirus in hospitals.

Commenting on those who caught Covid-19 in hospital, Scottish Labour health spokeswoman Monica Lennon said: “Ministers still won’t tell us how many of them were sent to care homes with the infection and later died.”

Absolutely not. I’m not trying to conceal anything. JEANE FREEMAN