SNP put pressure on health board over completion date for Royal Children’s Hospital

by Democrat reporter

The local health board WAS put under pressure from the Scottish Government over child cancer services at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital campus, according to its former chief executive.

Speaking about the urgency to begin paediatric bone marrow transplants in a facility that was not safe or ready, Robert Calderwood said NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde “was under pressure from the government to why a national service was not being performed”, according to the Scottish Daily Express..

The health board triggered a huge political headache for the SNP by declaring that “pressure was applied to open the hospital on time and on budget, and it is now clear the hospital opened too early.”

But both Nicola Sturgeon and John Swinney, who were first minister and deputy first minister at the time, have denied having anything to do with it.

At the weekend, the NHS board issued a clarification to its closing statement to the public inquiry into the scandal to say the pressure had been “general in nature” and came from within the board itself.

However, describing the period before the hospital began treating patients on April 27, 2015 – just over a week before the general election – Mr Calderwood said “people were not being put under pressure” from the board itself.

At least 84 child cancer patients fell ill after catching infections and at least two children died. Overall, seven death at the £842million facility are being investigated by prosecutors.

One of the victims was Millie Main, 10, who died in 2017 after contracting a water-linked infection while being treated for leukaemia in the Schiehallion unit at the Royal Hospital for Children (RHC) on the QEUH campus.

Giving evidence to the inquiry last year, Mr Calderwood was asked about a meeting in September 2015 to discuss the bone marrow transplant rooms at RHC. At that time, only two of eight BMT rooms met the required ventilation standard for child cancer cases.

(L-R) Robert Calderwood, Shona Robison and Nicola Sturgeon await Queen Elizabeth's arrival

Mr Calderwood, who retired in 2017 and was succeeded by Jane Grant, replied that there had been a debate among senior colleagues about paediatric bone marrow transplantation “because the Board was under pressure from the government to why a national service was not being performed.”

He said the much publicised Schiehallion ward was “front and centre” of the QEUH campus to replace the facility at the old Yorkhill children’s hospital as Scotland’s only paediatric bone marrow transplant unit. However, the inquiry heard that it was signed off without any expert clinical input.

The inquiry chair Lord Brodie said: “Now, how I read this minute is that it indicates that there was no specialised ventilation provision made in respect of any part of the Schiehallion unit as at September 2015 other than in respect of the two isolation rooms that either achieve or nearly achieve the standard.”

Kimberly Darroch and her daughter Milly Main, 10, who died at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in 2017.

Scottish Conservative shadow health secretary Dr Sandesh Gulhane said: “The former chief executive’s comments make clear that not only was there interference from the SNP government, but that the priority for ministers was getting facilities in use as soon as possible, rather than patient safety.

“The ventilation problems in the bone marrow transplant rooms ought to have been a cause for alarm and caution. Robert Calderwood’s testimony also throws further doubt on the vehement denials by John Swinney and Nicola Sturgeon that the SNP government was not the source of the pressure put on the health board to open QEUH before it was ready, 10 days before a general election.”

Later in his testimony, Mr Calderwood was asked if he’d had been given any assurances about the “design and build of the Schiehallion unit”. Mr Calderwood replied: “No, the Schiehallion unit opened in June 2015. It was a centrepiece of the late Queen’s visit to open the hospital was to the Schiehallion unit, along with the First Minister and others.

“So, at that point, all appeared to be progressing satisfactorily. The issue was raised by Infection Control as part of their routine programme, that they were concerned that the environment was not correct.”

In fact, Queen Elizabeth officially opened the hospital campus on July 3, 2015 with Ms Sturgeon and Shona Robison walking behind Her Majesty and the Duke of Edinburgh.

On the day, the first minister said: “The new hospitals are some of the most modern and best designed healthcare facilities in the world and I am delighted to mark the official opening today.”

Ms Robison, who was then health secretary, chimed in: “Now that staff and patients are settling in to the new hospitals it is clear that these fantastic facilities are already beginning to transform patient care.”

However, by that point, many of the problems in the Schiehallion unit were already apparent.

On June 5, 2015, Professor Craig Williams – Consultant Microbiologist and Lead Infection Control – arrived to find “some holes in the walls of the BMT [bone marrow transplant] cubicles and the ventilation had not been switched on”.

It then emerged the proper air filters hadn’t been fitted.

The infections linked to the Schiehallion children’s cancer ward form a key part of the inquiry, although other problems at the hospital campus – many of them with deadly or life-changing consquences – are also part of the wider scandal.

Last year, Molly Cuddihy, 23, pictured left, died in the QEUH some seven years after she contracted an infection from an IV line while receiving cancer treatment on the Schiehallion ward. Experts concluded it was most likely airborne or water-borne.

At least 84 child cancer patients contracted 118 infections at the hospital between 2015 and 2019; the youngest was just three years old and one child suffered eight separate infections. Of the 22 who had died by 2021, the Scottish Government admits that two died “at least in part” because of their infection.

Lord Brodie needs ‘space to consider all the evidence’

The health board said it had nothing to add to its previous statement, when it made an “unreserved apology to the patients, families and staff affected”.NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde was responsible for delivery of the hospital construction and oversight.

“The Government brought forward the public inquiry so that families – some of whom I have met, and to whom I pay tribute for their work and their diligence following the trauma that they have undoubtedly experienced – can get answers to the questions that they are posing.

“It is because we have instigated a public inquiry that, I believe, we are getting to the truth, and it is right that Lord Brodie, pictured above right, now be given the space to consider all the evidence.”