By Bill Heaney
BBC Scotland is reporting that a public inquiry into safety and well-being issues at two Scottish hospitals is starting on May 9. Why is the inquiry being held and what will it cover?
The inquiry is being chaired by Lord Brodie QC and will examine issues at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital (QEUH) in Glasgow, and the Royal Hospital for Children and Young People (RHCYP) and Department of Clinical Neurosciences in Edinburgh.
The RHCYP in Edinburgh was due to open in July 2019 but was delayed after last-minute inspections found safety concerns over its ventilation systems.
The Scottish government then stepped in to prevent the hospital from opening just one day before it was due to accept patients.
Lord Brodie QC and Jeane Freeman, now retired Health Secretary.
Health Secretary Jeane Freeman said in September 2019 that the hospital would not be fully operational for at least another year.
The £840m QEUH campus in Glasgow opened in April 2015 and has faced a series of contamination incidents since then, linked to issues with water quality and ventilation systems.
An independent review into the hospital’s design published its findings in June.
The report found a “series of problems” with the design and build of the hospital, but no clear evidence to link those failures to any “avoidable deaths”.
The Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow opened in 2015What is the format of the inquiry?
The statutory public inquiry will be led by Lord Brodie QC, a Court of Session judge, and is being held under the Inquiries Act 2005.
This gives it the power to require witnesses to attend and to disclose information related to the inquiry’s work.
The inquiry team is independent – with its conduct, procedures and lines of investigation driven by the chairman Lord Brodie.
The inquiry may take a few years and could be paused if other investigations at the QEUH turn into a criminal prosecution.
Witnesses will be called after the inquiry team has considered the evidence.
Why did the Scottish government order the inquiry?
Jeane Freeman said in June that the inquiry had been ordered to protect the “safety and well-being of all patients and their families”, which the health secretary said should be a “primary consideration” in all NHS construction projects.
“I want to make sure this is the case for all future projects, which is why, following calls from affected parents, I announced a public inquiry to examine the new Royal Hospital for Children and Young People and Department of Clinical Neurosciences and the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital sites,” she added.
The new £150m RHCYP in Edinburgh has now been delayed for more than three years and was initially due to open in 2017.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said she “deeply regrets” the hold-up, caused by problems with the specification of the ventilation system.
The announcement of the inquiry also followed a series of infection outbreaks – and at least four deaths – at the QEUH.
A BBC Scotland investigation in June 2020 also spoke to senior doctors at the hospital who said their attempts to raise concerns about risks to patient safety were not taken seriously.
They told BBC Scotland’s Disclosure they were branded as troublemakers for raising the alarm.
What will the inquiry cover?
The inquiry describes its “overarching aim” as considering the “planning, design, construction, commissioning and, where appropriate, maintenance” of both the hospitals.
It will determine how ventilation and water contamination issues affected patient safety and care – and whether these issues could have been prevented.
The inquiry will also recommend how “past mistakes” can be avoided in future NHS projects.
Other areas that the inquiry team will investigate include the management of the projects by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and NHS Lothian – and whether the “organisational culture” at the health boards encouraged staff to raise concerns.
It will also consider whether individuals or bodies “deliberately concealed or failed to disclose evidence of wrongdoing or failures” during the projects.
The inquiry will report back to Scottish ministers when it has concluded its findings.
.Make no mistake, the defective schools, the deficient hospitals, the deadly Grenfell fire disaster are all a result of the Westminster government’s policy of deregulation of standards and allowing commercial interests to self certify on safety.
A substantial but by no means the only contributor to poor build stndards is the PFI form of procurement that changed an industry.
Using a developer to fund, design, build and operate an asset is a massive conflict of interest that has caused huge impacts on construction standards.
With design and build supervised and self certified as to safety and building standards by the builder the balance of standards compliance changed and changed utterly from traditional procurement.
He who pays the piper may be an old adage but it is true. But left to its own devices and commercial interests a self design and certify procurement strategy has conflict of interest built in. The design envelope will inevitably always be pushed down to save money, maximise profit.
The Vale of Leven Academy with its defective gas supply to its heating should never have been signed off. The schools with the defective walls should never have been signed off. Or the new QEUH hospital another example of the sign off of poor standards.
And although the Scottish Government will not admit it there are some real horror story infrastructure quality stories out there.
And all I’m afraid started by Mrs Thatcher and then massively accelerated by Gordon Brown and Tony Blair Design, Build, Own, Operate and later Transfer as it then was to free up regulation and get borrowing off the books, changed an industry.
But do the punters care. Of course not. Like sheep they by and large take no interest. Of course when a school wall falls down and kills a child, or people die in the new QEUH due to defective water supply, there is an outburst of bleating. But it blows over and the poor standards, paid for through hugely expensive finance and comfortable build prices rolls on.
Building tomorrow’s slums today may be a quip but it has more than a ring of grim truth about it.
I have similar fears to those expressed in this excellent reader comment from Billie. Let’s make sure that McColl and the SNP politburo don’t get their hands on the £20 million from Boris for Dumbarton Town Centre. Since our current raft of highly paid officials don’t have the architectural acumen to come up with a plan and our councillors don’t have a scooby I hope the Council holds on until after the May elections before they proceed. What’s the point of coming up with a shopping centre when most retail is now done on-line? We need people with vision to come up with the plans for the new Dumbarton. Editor