Health Board bosses at Queen Elizabeth University Hospital claim lawyers used ‘flawed evidence’ which would scare patients and their families
By Bill Heaney
In shocking testimony uncovered by the Sunday Mail chief reporter Hannah Rodgers, solicitors at the Scottish Hospitals Inquiry have stated they believe Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital (QEUH) and the Royal Children’s Hospital has a ventilation system which remains unsafe and defective to this day.
The long-running probe is looking at problems with the construction of the QEUH, where dozens of patients developed rare infections and some people died.
Among them were 10-year-old Milly Main and 73-year-old Gail Armstrong who were both being treated for cancer.
Responding to journalists’ revelations, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has demanded the Scottish Government immediately take over the site to ensure patient safety.
He said: “It is absolutely disgraceful that after all these years and so many awful tragedies, there are still questions over the safety of the QEUH ventilation system.
“The management of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has opted for cover-up over transparency at every point in this scandal, so its reassurances don’t count for much.
Details of the ongoing safety concerns were revealed in a series of documents published last week.
Lawyers to the inquiry – who don’t represent any side in the probe – submitted a 785-page document which lays out the damning evidence it had heard so far in response to four key questions about the water and ventilation safety.
It stated that “deficiencies identified…should be considered to be unsafe, in the very specific sense that they present an additional risk of avoidable infection to patients.”
While they accepted that the risks created by the defects many not necessarily lead to harm, they added: “In each case the risk exists.”
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC) which runs the £842million hospital insisted the building is safe and has accused the inquiry counsel of “severe shortcomings” and bias throughout the inquiry so far.
The health board said the inquiry, chaired by Court of Session judge Lord Brodie, left, had heard “insufficient” and “plainly flawed evidence” and it would be “unfair” to patients who are now being treated at the QEUH to suggest the site is unsafe.In its submission NHSGGC said: “The conclusion that Scotland’s largest hospital and a nationally important paediatric cancer centre was or is ‘unsafe’ and exposes patients to an increased risk of infection is a serious one.
“It is likely to significantly undermine public confidence in the hospital. Patients may no longer want to be treated there.”
But serious concerns over safety at the hospital still remain as a result of its construction.
The amount of times air circulates in different wards (the ACH rate) was highlighted by the inquiry team as a potential risk, particularly in ward 4B – the adult stem cell transplant ward.
The report stated the ward did not have specially-filtered corridors called HEPA filters, or a back-up air handling unit.
The inquiry lawyers said that the hospital’s water system, which has been linked to several cases of infection in patients in the past, could now be considered safe provided filters are used on taps throughout the site.
Their statement said: “It is submitted that now…the domestic water systems of the QEUH/RHC are no longer in an unsafe condition in the sense that they now present no additional avoidable risk of infection due to active management of a system that had become a source of risk to immunocompromised patients.
“It should be noted that statement is made on the assumption that the [water filters] that are currently in place remain in place.”
NHSGGC responded furiously to the claims and said the lawyers’ comments “amount to a prosecution”.
As previously revealed, the health board is currently the subject of a corporate homicide probe in connection with the deaths of four patients at the QEUH.
“Patients and families should not be bearing the additional burden of that conclusion.” The health board also accused the inquiry lawyers of treating three doctors who raised the alarm about the problems with the hospital favourably to other NHSGGC staff who gave evidence.
The inquiry lawyers said: “At every turn NHSGGC senior managers, including the Medical Director, sought to minimise or belittle the points they were making” by using “informal meetings, whistleblowing reports…in order to undermine points being made by Dr Redding, Dr Peters and Dr Inkster and to protect the reputation of NHS GGC.”
Lord Brodie, chairman of the inquiry, said it was now up to him to come to a conclusion on the safety of the site.
He added: “When I come to make my determination I shall have to have regard to these and all other submissions and not only the evidence I have heard but the evidence I have yet to hear.”
You can have all the after the event enquiries you want but the bottom line is that Scotland, like the UK builds second rate infrastructure.
Poor build quality hospital, new schools with walls and cladding problems, building with cladding that catch fire, ditto luxury five star hotels like Cameron House, the list goes on and on.
And then of course there is the crumbling infrastructure starved of maintenance. The M8 Woodside viaduct near the old Stow College is an example if that. So deteriorated Transport Scotland at huge cost running into many hundreds of millions are fighting a rear guard action to repair an elevated highway that could have come perilously close to collapse.
But don’t get ne started, last week’s requirement to take the seven year late and four times over budget Glenn Sannox out of service because of waterline hull cracks in a boat only deployed in January reinforces what a poor country we really are.
And it’s going to get worse in our burger, fries, pizza and a coffee economy.
Thomas Telford would be turning in his grave as the Del Boy system bleeds the country dry of talent, investment and a skilled base.