CARE HOME POLICY MAY HAVE COST LIVES, STURGEON ADMITS

ELDERLY people may have died as a result of the decision to move them from hospitals into care homes early in the Covid-19 crisis, Nicola Sturgeon has admitted.

The First Minister also yesterday pledged an inquiry into Scotland’s care homes crisis.

And she conceded that, with hindsight, she may now come to a different conclusion on the decision to transfer 921 patients from hospitals into care homes in March.

The Scottish Government has still failed to answer key questions about how many of these patients were tested before being transferred – or what number were moved to care homes with Covid-19 outbreaks.

Nearly half of Scotland’s coronavirus death toll has been in care homes, where the number of current suspected cases has not declined in recent weeks despite reducing significantly in hospitals.

Labour MSP Neil Findlay said: ‘Untested patients being moved to care homes has been the biggest scandal of this Covid-19 crisis. The Scottish Government acted completely irresponsibly by doing this and we must, in the interests of all the families affected, get to the bottom of how many subsequently died. This cannot be brushed under the carpet.’

The Scottish Government revealed last week that 921 patients were transferred from hospital into care homes in March – three times more than first indicated by Health Secretary Jeane Freeman.

Asked at her daily media briefing yesterday whether any patients were transferred to care homes then subsequently contracted the virus and died, Miss Sturgeon said: ‘I cannot say that for certain.

‘That is one thing we will want to absolutely look at and ask very serious questions about. But equally, nor can I absolutely say that will not be the case.

‘What I’ve said, and sometimes it feels a bit like politicians like me are sort of penalised for trying to be open here, we are dealing with a situation here that has a lot of uncertainty, and I am trying to be honest about some of the implications and consequences of that. It

‘This can’t be brushed under the carpet’

may be that if we could wind the clock back, we could take different decisions.

‘But that doesn’t mean that we would – because I cannot foresee the circumstances in which we would have concluded it was right to keep older people who didn’t necessarily need to be in hospital, in hospital, while hospitals were filling up with cases of this virus.

‘When you’re dealing with something like this there are no perfect options available. You have to do what you think is best based on the knowledge you have at the time.’

Earlier, Miss Sturgeon told BBC Radio Scotland: ‘What has happened in care homes, not just in

Scotland but in many countries across the world, is heartbreaking and will haunt many of us for a very, very long time to come.’

Asked if she believed that the decision to send untested hospital patients to care homes may have

‘We’ve done what we thought best’

been a ‘contributory factor’ to the death toll, she said: ‘Look, if I apply hindsight to that I’d come to a different conclusion.’

She said there were older people, so-called ‘delayed discharges’ in hospital ‘without medical need’, at a time when ‘we were getting ready for what we considered would be a tsunami of coronavirus cases into our hospitals’.

The First Minister added: ‘It would have exposed older people to enormous risk to leave them in hospitals at that point... so what we did was put in place risk assessment guidance in care homes.

‘At every stage we’ve done what we thought was best based on the knowledge we had at the time.

‘Of course mistakes will have been made and we learn as our knowledge of this virus increases but the suggestion any of us just acted recklessly or without due care and attention to older people is frankly one that is not true and fundamentally very wrong.’

Miss Sturgeon said she had ‘no doubt’ there would be inquiries into the handling of the crisis.

The Scottish Government only introduced mandatory testing of patients discharged from hospital into care homes on April 21.

Figures published yesterday show 45 per cent of care homes in Scotland – 486 establishments – have suspected Covid-19 cases, a record high.

Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard said it was ‘inexcusable to discharge patients into care homes without first testing them’.