Almost 900 Scottish NHS staff may have contracted coronavirus in hospital

Health Secretary Jeane Freeman has told MSPs almost 900 NHS staff may have contracted coronavirus in hospitals.

A Covid 19 patient is cared for in a negative pressure room at the Royal Alexandra Hospital, Paisley

She stressed it is “unvalidated data” but said there are 894 confirmed or suspected cases of the virus among health staff linked to 125 “incidents” at hospitals.

Ms Freeman spoke of a “potential 901 patient cases” of coronavirus that could be linked to these outbreaks – 870 patients confirmed as having the virus and 31 where the disease is suspected. This includes 218 patients who have died.

She said: “When we do the validation of data we will know how many of those cases, those staff, those deaths arose as a consequence of hospital acquired Covid-19.”

The Health Secretary said the Scottish Government published the unvalidated data to try to be “helpful”.

But she stressed: “It is not yet clear whether all of the individuals involved contracted the infection in the community prior to admission or in hospital.”

Speaking about the number of staff and patients who could have been infected, she said: “This position is very far from definitive at the moment, not least due to the long incubation period of Covid-19.”

Tory health spokesman Miles Briggs told Ms Freeman: “This failure has meant people have entered hospital without coronavirus, they have caught it there and they have died.”

She responded: “Please do not assert what you do not know, you are asserting yet again, on the basis of suspected transmissions, that people have caught this virus in hopsital and have died.

“You don’t know that and neither do I.”

Mr Briggs and other opposition politicians also attacked the Health Secretary on the issue of testing.

Green MSP Alison Johnstone said research suggests infections could be reduced by a third by routine testing.

Ms Freeman has not yet been able to give a start date for testing of hospital staff.

Ms Johnstone said: “While we ask questions in this chamber, potential asymptomatic carriers are walking around hospitals with potential to infect patients and high risk staff, such as black and minority ethnic doctors and nurses.

“The ongoing absence of routine, regular testing in our hospitals is indefensible.”

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said his confidence in the Government has been “shaken” by the 218 deaths that may be linked to the hospital outbreaks.

Labour health spokeswoman Monica Lennon said: “It’s clear that coronavirus has been out of control in our hospitals despite emergency steps to ban visitors and reduce patient numbers.

“It’s deeply worrying that the Health Secretary has not been upfront with the public all along about the harm caused to NHS patients and staff.”

Ms Freeman said while she had published unvalidated data in this instance “to be helpful” she would not do so again.

She told MSPs: “I will not do that again because clearly all the caveats that surround unvalidated data are ignored and the numbers are taken as fact and that is entirely wrong.”

With regards testing of NHS staff, she said “testing of those individuals, particularly staff who do not have symptoms is the right precautionary measure”.

But the Health Secretary added the “right delivery plan” is needed before this can happen, with work under way on this.

A message from the Editor:Thank you for reading this story on our website. While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make of you.With the coronavirus lockdown having a major impact on many of our advertisers - and consequently the revenue we receive - we are more reliant than ever on you taking out a digital subscription.Subscribe to scotsman.com and enjoy unlimited access to Scottish news and information online and on our app. With a digital subscription, you can read more than 5 articles, see fewer ads, enjoy faster load times, and get access to exclusive newsletters and content. Visit https://www.scotsman.com/subscriptions now to sign up.

Our journalism costs money and we rely on advertising, print and digital revenues to help to support them. By supporting us, we are able to support you in providing trusted, fact-checked content for this website.

Joy Yates

Editorial Director