Covid in Scotland: Government 'failed' social care sector during pandemic

Scotland's health secretary has said the government failed to properly understand the needs of social care during the pandemic.

Jeane Freeman said the right precautions had not been taken when elderly people were being discharged from hospital to care homes.

Ms Freeman told the BBC podcast, Political Thinking with Nick Robinson, that it had been a "mistake".

There have been more than 10,000 Covid-related deaths in Scotland.

Of that number, a third occurred in care homes.

In the first wave of the pandemic, more than 1,300 elderly people were discharged from hospitals to care homes in Scotland before a testing regime was in place.

The Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross said the Scottish government's mistakes had "cost lives".

Dr Donald MacAskill, of the care home industry body Scottish Care, said there had been so much emphasis on protecting the NHS in the early stages of the pandemic that not enough was done to protect those in social care.

Ms Freeman, who is retiring from Holyrood at next month's election, said: "I think our failures were not understanding the social care sector well enough.

"So we didn't respond quickly enough to what was needed in our care homes, but also in social care in the community."

Mr Robinson put it to her that the UK's highest death rate in care homes was in Scotland after many people were sent into care homes from hospital with the virus.

He added: "Thousands of words have been written about this but if there's one thing you think 'that's what we got wrong' - how would summarise it?"

Ms Freeman replied: "We wanted people who didn't need to stay in hospital any longer, because they'd been treated and they were clinically well, to be discharged as quickly as possible so we freed up those beds for Covid patients.

"Remember, the early predictions about the number of people going into hospital were terrifying actually.

"But we didn't take the right precautions to make sure that older people leaving hospital going into care homes were as safe as they could be and that was a mistake.

"Now, I might argue we couldn't do anything other than we did and all the rest of it. But it still created a real problem for those older people and for the others who lived in care homes and for the staff who worked in care homes."

In January, BBC Scotland revealed a special Crown Office unit set up to probe Covid-linked deaths is investigating cases at 474 care homes in Scotland.

The unit was set up in May last year to gather information on the circumstances of all deaths in care homes.

Prosecutors will eventually decide if the deaths should be the subject of a fatal accident inquiry or prosecution.

But care homes say the investigation is "disproportionate" and is placing a huge burden on overstretched staff.

Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross said grieving families have been left without answers about what happened to their loved ones for almost a year.

He said: "It's a disgrace that the SNP covered up their mistake for so long.

"Their report on care home deaths was delayed and when it was finally published, they tried to spin it."

He also accused the health secretary of trying to hide the "grave error" from the public.

Mr Ross added: "People will be left wondering - why is Jeane Freeman only willing to admit such a huge mistake was made now?"

Scottish Labour's deputy leader and health spokeswoman Jackie Baillie said: "These admissions will offer no comfort to the families of those who needlessly lost loved ones due to the Scottish government's errors."

She claimed the crisis could have been averted had the SNP backed Labour's calls for a national care service more than a decade ago after Scotland's worst Clostridium difficile (C. diff) outbreak in West Dunbartonshire.

Ms Baillie added: "Lessons that could have been learned were ignored. The time for reflection was when it could have saved lives, not now on podcasts."

A spokesperson for the Scottish Greens said it was "an absolute tragedy that so many people were fatally let down".

She added: "That so many families have lost a loved one due to systematic policy failures is an appalling reflection on the handling of this crisis.

"It's good that the Scottish government now seems to recognise that the way it handled this issue exacerbated the problem. But it has still failed to satisfactorily explain why it allowed so many potentially infectious people to be discharged to care homes."

Liberal Democrats health spokesman Alex Cole-Hamilton said Ms Freeman's comments were the closest that Scottish government ministers have come to "admitting their decisions had tragic consequences".

"The situation in care homes was an unimaginably sad one. My sympathies are with all the families who lost loved ones and those who could not be by their relative's side at the very end," he said.

Mr Cole-Hamilton added that he hoped the ongoing inquiry into care home deaths would provide some answers for families.

An SNP spokesperson said the government had already acknowledged that mistakes were made.

They added: "The Scottish government commissioned extensive work to review the links between hospital discharges and the impact of Covid in our care homes.

"The first minister has committed to establishing a public inquiry into the handling of Covid, in which the voices of families would be heard, by the end of the year.

"We hope other governments across the UK will come together to support such an inquiry on a four-nations basis"