Scandal-hit hospital seeks to rebuild ward after mould and defects

After years of cover-up, lies, obfuscation and brazen spin doctoring about the actual reasons for patient deaths and hospital acquired infections, the local health board, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, which covers West Dunbartonshire and Argyll and Bute, is seeking to rebuild a cancer ward there after issues with mould and water ingress.

The health board said today that the proposal, which follows a refusal to accept for the past five years that something was seriously wrong – fatally flawed even – in the hospital design and building work that  it was “necessary” for the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital (QEUH) campus to accept that ongoing defects had disrupted the running of the adult bone marrow transplant unit.

Health Secretary Neil Gray said the  SNP Scottish government would work with the health board on the plans — despite denials by colleagues including his predecessors Nicola Sturgeon, who has now resigned as First Minister, and Shona Robinson, the current Finance Secretary, who is retiring from parliament at the election in May,

The scandal-hit hospital is subject to a national inquiry chaired by Court of Session judge Lord Brodie, right,  which was ordered in 2019 after concerns about unusual infections and the deaths of four patients.

The probe examined mistakes made in the planning, design and construction of the QEUH campus, which includes the Royal Hospital for Children.

In January, the health board admitted to the Scottish Hospitals Inquiry that infections of some child cancer patients were probably linked to a hospital water system.

A NHS GGC spokeswoman said the health board was now confident of the water quality in the ward, however the ventilation system did not fully comply with NHS guidance.

A similar assurance was given by First Minister John Swinney, but he was forced to retract his statement after it was revealed that mould caused by water penetration had been discovered.

That was a public relations disaster for the hospital which has seldom been out of the headlines for all the wrong reasons since it was officially opened, some say for political reasons, before it was fit for purpose.

“Patient safety remains central to everything we do,” she added.

“Due to ongoing infrastructure defects, we have closed a number of rooms in recent weeks to undertake both planned refurbishment as well as responding to a number of defects.”

The health board said it was “necessary” to develop a proposal for a new unit which would be more resilient, fully compliant with legal guidance and provide greater patient, staff and public confidence.

“This project will take significant time and investment. However, we are now commencing this important work,” the spokeswoman added.

“In the meantime, we continue to assess and take actions as necessary to maintain this vital national service.”

The health secretary said the government would work with the health board as it developed the plans “to ensure patient safety and high-quality service are at the forefront of the proposal”.

He added: “It is reassuring that NHSGGC have proactively approached ARHAI (Antimicrobial Resistance & Healthcare Associated Infection Scotland) and NHS Scotland Assure colleagues for support with an options appraisal around the unit as a precautionary measure.”

However, the board refused to accept the advice of in-house experts that serious microbiological problems existed and two leading persons, board chairman John Brown and chief executive Jane Grant, pictured right, who had determinedly clung to  their posts, departed the scene.

It is believed Mr Brown held posts with nine different organisations and that he and Ms Grant and several others others received substantial retirement/commutation payments.

The health board previously told the Scottish Hospitals Inquiry that it accepts many aspects of the design, build and commissioning of the hospital campus were flawed.

It said there was legal action against the main building contractor Multiplex to try to recover £90m, which is one tenth of what the Scottish Government paid for it.

“NHSGGC did not receive the building it asked or paid for,” it added.

Multiplex has previously said in evidence that infection problems arose because of design choices by the health board or poor maintenance.

NHSGGC accepts there was poor supervision of contractors and a lack of in-house expertise, including at board level, for a project of such complexity, but they repeatedly accepted no blame for anything when patients began dying and the media asked questions.

On Thursday, Gray told the Scottish Parliament that mould had been found in one of the closed rooms in the ward.

And earlier this month, First Minister John Swinney confirmed that a red alert had been issued for one of the wards at the hospital.

He said the Scottish government was first told of an amber alert on the ward on 26 February.  It was escalated to a red warning on 5 March before returning to amber.

However he said the rise in alerts are primarily due to media interest in the hospital rather than a direct threat.

Last month, NHSGGC announced a new oversight group, chaired by Sir Lewis Duthie Ritchie, the James Mackenzie Professor of General Practice at the University of Aberdeen who holds honorary professorships at the University of Edinburgh and the University of the Highlands and Islands, to boost public confidence in the safety of the QEUH.

In January it emerged that the Crown Office, Scotland’s independent prosecution and deaths investigation service was investigating seven deaths for potential links to the environment at the QEUH.

Patients who died after treatment at the hospital included Molly Cuddihy, left, and Milly Main, whose mother Kimberley is pictured with Anas Sarwar, the Labour MSP who took up the family’s case with the health board.