20 Nov 2019
SNP government ministers have been criticised for “pointing the finger at everyone else” for their failings following a statement to Holyrood by the health secretary today.
Jeane Freeman was addressing major problems at the nationalists’ £800 million flagship hospital – the Queen Elizabeth in Glasgow – following the death of two patients at the adjacent Royal Hospital for Sick Children.
Families have accused the SNP government of a cover-up, and today Ms Freeman said she’d asked the head of NHS Scotland to review the cases.
However, shadow health secretary Miles Briggs said his counterpart had run out of excuses and should resign or be sacked over the fiasco.
Scottish Conservative shadow health secretary Miles Briggs said:
“I am sorry to say that for the families Jeane Freeman’s statement will do little to reassure or answer the many and increasing questions over patient safety at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital Campus.
“At the heart of this scandal, we must never forget, are grieving families who are completely unsatisfied and think there has been a cover-up, and who can blame them?
“The families deserve to get the vital answers they seek and Ms Freeman has today simply posed more questions regarding what she knew and when around patients, as well as the SNP government not being informed or to this date provided with health board reports.
“We need to see openness and full transparency from SNP minsters and for the Scottish Parliament to be given full details.
“The fact that Jeane Freeman has not been provided with a report from 2017 is deeply concerning.
“The SNP planned and built this hospital, and has presided over its first few years in operation – it can’t just keep pointing the finger at everyone else.
“As the SNP health secretary, the buck stops with Jeane Freeman.
“This is just another NHS failure by the SNP, and it’s time the senior minister in charge of it all took some responsibility.”
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