Why we need Covid inquiry now – Alex Cole-Hamilton

If the coronavirus outbreak is being suppressed for now, then we must use this time to learn the lessons of the first wave in order to prepare us for a second, writes Alex Cole-Hamilton.

More than 1,300 people were shipped out of hospitals and into residential care in the period of high infection between March and April

I‘ve been calling for a forward-looking public inquiry to quickly learn the lessons of the first wave of Covid-19 in time for a possible full-blown second wave. After revelations this weekend, this is now more important than ever.

The straw that broke this camel’s back came when the Sunday Post splashed the headline that as many as 37 patients were transferred from Scottish hospitals into care homes AFTER they had tested positive for Covid-19. By any stretch, that is a devastating revelation. We need to understand mistakes like that now, so we don’t make similar ones in the weeks and months to come.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not looking for retribution. We need a public inquiry now, because if the virus is being suppressed for the time being, then it is essential we use this time to learn the lessons of the first wave in order to prepare us for a second.

Alex Cole-Hamilton is the Lib Dem MSP for Edinburgh Western

Despite what you may have heard, Scotland isn’t having a great pandemic. We currently have the third worst coronavirus mortality rate in Europe and a recent revision down of Covid death numbers in England by the Office of National Statistics now brings us bang into line with the rest of the home nations. And much of the human cost of Scotland’s Covid story has been paid in our care homes.

Earlier this summer, the Cabinet Secretary for Health conceded that initial estimates of the number of those patients, moved from wards to homes to make way for Covid cases, had been dramatically understated. All told, more than 1,300 people had been shipped out of hospitals and into residential care in that period of high infection between March and April.

Let’s unpack that for a moment. While the Scottish Government urged the NHS to accelerate the decant of hospital patients into homes (whose Covid status was unknown in most cases), three things were happening:

Firstly, the international community was screaming about asymptomatic transmission. From as early as late January, cases of people who seemed well but were passing on the virus were cropping up all over the world. As such, the World Health Organisation and leading virologists were insisting that testing should be carried out for anyone potentially exposed to Covid, regardless of symptoms.

Secondly, NHS Scotland knew there was a problem with virus transmission in our hospitals that they couldn’t understand. The virus was moving around in ways that cofounded infection control measures, but still we moved patients out without testing them.

And finally, Scotland’s care homes had pushed the panic button over a sector-wide shortage of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). These homes were receiving an avalanche of new arrivals from hospital wards, without the gear they needed to keep everyone safe.

Any one of these three realities should have halted the movement between hospitals and care homes, but it continued. To learn now that it went further and that patients who were known to be Covid-positive were still moved into care homes is astonishing and distressing. We need answers.

A public inquiry is inevitable, but when to call one is a finely balanced decision. On the one hand, you don’t want to take key decision-makers away from their posts when they need to be focused on the emergency. But when the catastrophic repercussions of early decisions becomes apparent, then you have to ask why. That tipping point was surely reached this weekend. We need a frank review of how we got here now, so that we can make better decisions going forward.

Alex Cole-Hamilton is the Lib Dem MSP for Edinburgh Western

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