Misplaced blame

It is understandable that in the middle of an election

campaign some will blame the Scottish Government for issues that are much more complex than simple sound bites (John Mcintosh, Letters, 22 April).

The decisions to discharge from hospital into care homes are taken, in the interests of the patients, many of them traumatised with dementia, by highly qualified medics in consultation with care home managers, skilled in the isolation of infected residents from decades of flu epidemics.

All of the reports on discharges found a strong link between the size of a care home and outbreaks. The larger ones, corporateowned, high occupancy and with staffing problems plugged by itinerant agency staff travelling between sites, were more likely to have outbreaks and more deaths.

The reports were focused on hospital discharges, not on the source of care home outbreaks and provided no statistical evidence that hospital discharges exacerbated the position in care homes, and this pattern was replicated throughout the UK. Colin Hamilton’s comments on Nicola Sturgeon’s Covid briefings have no foundation in fact, as several opposition politicians have regularly undermined the non-political Covid advice within a couple of minutes. When Boris Johnson gives his Uk-wide briefings, the BBC doesn’t offer Westminster opposition leaders the right to respond. Why not?

MARY THOMAS Watson Crescent, Edinburgh