First Minister’s Questions: Nicola Sturgeon pressed on Sunday Post care home revelations

Nicola Sturgeon has faced questions over the release of patients who had tested positive for Covid into care homes.

A Sunday Post investigation last weekend revealed that dozens of patients who had tested positive for Covid-19 were transferred from hospitals into care homes.

One expert compared the decision to “putting a lit match to dry tinder”.

The Scottish Conservatives’ Holyrood leader Ruth Davidson pressed Ms Sturgeon on the matter at First Minister’s Questions, asking if and when anyone in Government knew about the situation.

In response, Ms Sturgeon described it as a “really serious issue” and said that ministers had no insight into the individual clinical decisions made.

She said: “Scottish Government ministers do not know the individual clinical decisions that are taken in cases of patients being discharged from hospital, whether they’re being discharged to their own homes or to a care home or any other setting.

“The responsibility of ministers is to put in place guidance. There has been guidance in place since March 13. The March 13 guidance refers to the need for clinical screening of patients being discharged from hospital to take place.”

She referred to the announcement earlier this week that Public Health Scotland would be producing data on discharges from hospitals to care homes, including their testing history for the virus.

It would include numbers of  how many were discharged while they were considered to be infectious and what the rationale was for the discharge.

She said: “We will provide as much information as we can as all of us seek to learn the lessons and reflect on the decisions that were made in the handling of, what everyone knows, is an unprecedented situation.”

Scottish Conservatives @RuthDavidsonMSP asks about whether anyone in ScotGov knew that patients, who had tested positive for Covid, were released into care homes.

FM @NicolaSturgeon says ministers are not involved in clinical decisions.#FMQs ➡️https://t.co/kMUIj8DYP7 pic.twitter.com/ahjVpoQSdA

— BBC Scotland News (@BBCScotlandNews) August 20, 2020

Ms Davidson called on the First Minster to launch an immediate public inquiry.

She questioned why the Scottish Government were “inconsistent” in allowing police and the Crown Office to investigate infections in care homes but were waiting for a public inquiry.

She asked for the remit of the inquiry to be published.

Ms Sturgeon said that it would be inappropriate for her to instruct the police and Crown Office on what to do.

She added: “The biggest disservice I would do this country right now, in the teeth of a pandemic that may be accelerating again as we have seen from the figures in Scotland, is to divert the attention of everybody in government, in health boards and in our care sector into a public inquiry.”

.@LabourRichard asks the FM to take responsibility for the situation of people being discharged from hospitals into care homes @NicolaSturgeon says she is sorry if the government has got any aspect of the handling of #coronavirus wrong

Follow live: https://t.co/UWc2VAsVVU pic.twitter.com/mFOw163nHS

— BBC Scotland News (@BBCScotlandNews) August 20, 2020

Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard also questioned the First Minister on the care home revelations, questioning why it took a newspaper investigation to find out what had gone on.

He called for the data on hospital discharges, which Ms Sturgeon said is due to be published by the end of September, urgently.

A freedom of information request by his party found that 1,203 people had been discharged without being tested for Covid-19 between March and May.

He said that was likely to be a “gross underestimate” given that five health boards, including the two biggest in Scotland, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and NHS Lothian, failed to answer the request.

In May, Mr Leonard said, Ms Sturgeon told the Scottish Parliament that patients in hospitals would need to have two negative tests before they could be discharged, before asking if the First Minister was aware at the time this was not happening in all situations.

She replied: “When I gave that answer, I gave the policy position at the time, that position has moved on and developed but at that point the policy position was where somebody had been known in hospital to have Covid, they had to have two negative tests before being admitted to a care home.”

The First Minister said the guidance was “reflected in practice at that time” and the testing of care home residents and staff has since been expanded.

She added that a change in understanding of the effectiveness of testing people without symptoms – which was initially thought to be less effective – led to the testing policy being expanded further.

Mr Leonard asked if she would apologise to care home staff, residents and those who had lost loved ones.

She replied: “If the government has got it wrong, at any stage, in our handling of this, notwithstanding the best intentions we have then yes, I say sorry for that.”

Ms Sturgeon said that she takes responsibility for Government’s handling of the pandemic every day, and will continue to say sorry if they get things wrong.

She said criticism was legitimate, but that people shouldn’t doubt “the seriousness with which she takes every single aspect.”

She added that, at the time of decisions been made on keeping hospitals clear, reports of Italy’s medical facilities being overwhelmed by an influx of Covid cases influenced choices made.

Decisions were made, she said, on the best knowledge, evidence, judgement and intentions.

She added: “Lots of things have kept me awake at night but at that point I did not know if our hospitals would be able to cope with the influx.

“I also did not know what risk elderly patients, particularly elderly patients who had no need to be there, would be at if they were in hospital when Covid patients were coming in in huge numbers.”

The First Minister said she would forever regret anything they got wrong.