Former health secretary quizzed on her role which saw patients discharged from hospital into care homes without being tested for deadly virus
By Bill Heaney and agency reporters
Former health secretary Jeane Freeman has told the UK Covid Inquiry she will “regret for the rest of her life” care home deaths caused by Scottish Government decision-making.
Ms Freeman, who was the health secretary during the pandemic up to the 2021 Holyrood election, told the inquiry before judge Lady Hallett in Edinburgh that there were “no risk free choices” when considering whether to introduce social distancing measures into care homes.
Her time in office oversaw key decision making such as discharging patients to care homes without testing them for coronavirus first.
She told the inquiry: “I want it read into the record. I was very concerned about our care sector, and regret very much and will do for the rest of my life, any deaths that occurred there because of action the Scottish Government didn’t, or did take, and could have done better.”
Counsel to the inquiry, Jamie Dawson KC, asked the former health secretary if it was correct to say there was a lack of urgency or prioritisation of the issues posed by the care sector.
She also said she had “two-fold” concern on moving people into care homes, including the urge to ensure patients who were ready to leave hospital were not kept in any longer, leading to additional risks of diminished muscle capabilities, or contracting the virus in hospital.
“Against that was the risk of transferring people to care homes who had not been tested,” she said.
It led to ministers introducing social distancing in care homes, prohibiting communal meetings between residents and restricting external visits.
Mr Dawson put it to Ms Freeman that guidance was not issued until March 13 2020, after former first minister Nicola Sturgeon received a message from a friend whose relative was in a care home.
She added: “None of this was a risk-free choice. I understood very well the distress that might be caused by asking for physical distancing and communal associations and ending external visits.
“I understood that. But I also believed that to allow that to continue was to increase the risk of transmission into and within the care home.”
Well known Dumbarton woman, the late Mrs Mary Rose Crozier, pictured with her daughters Mary and Dorothy, was in care at Crosslet House care home in Dumbarton where relatives were not allowed inside to visit residents.
Ms Freeman said the issue of discharging patients from hospital to a care home without being tested was a “complex issue”.
She said that while 348 care homes had outbreaks of Covid-19, “some care homes that received discharges did not have outbreaks”.
But she went on to admit the Scottish Government response to Covid-19 in the adult care sector was “not as adequate as I would have wished it to be”.
She added: “I believe it was all that could be done with the resources available to us at that point, and that improved as time passed.”
Earlier, Ms Freeman told the inquiry that she had been unable to recover messages she had exchanged with Ms Sturgeon but insisted such correspondence was “short” and “operational”.
She went on to say that Government “decisions were not reached” through WhatsApp, adding it “never occurred” to her to delete messages.
It stated that all departments within the UK Government were fully engaged in a way that the Scottish Government “simply isn’t”.
Jamie Dawson KC put it to Ms Freeman that there was a “general lack of awareness” regarding the increasing severity of the pandemic from the Scottish Government.
She said: “Certainly, if that is the case, then it is a contradistinction to the position of health ministers, the first minister or the deputy first minister, it is clear that was Mr Grieve’s feeling or view, I think he was reasonably frustrated.
“The department appeared to be taking to him the view that this was a public health matter and not for them.”
Former Health Secretary Jeane Freeman, Scottish Labour spokesperson Dame Jackie Baillie, former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and Justice Heather Hallett, who is chairing the inquiry.
Commenting after Jeane Freeman’s appearance at the inquiry Scottish Labour Health spokesperson Dame Jackie Baillie said: “This was a chance to shed some much needed light on what went so tragically wrong during the pandemic, but it has provided few answers.
“It is clear that the Scottish Government was woefully unprepared for Covid and made a number of serious mistakes.
“However, today brought no clear answers about the tragic decision to discharge untested and Covid-positive patients into care homes.
“Jeane Freeman’s remarks will be cold comfort to those bereaved during the pandemic. It is essential that families get the answers they deserve over the course of this Inquiry.”