Claims SNP spent days spinning hospital discharges to care homes report labelled 'nonsense'

Scottish Conservatives have claimed the Scottish Government spent almost a week “plotting how to spin” the results of a report into whether hospital discharges into care homes led to deaths from Covid-19.

The report showed discharges from hospitals into care homes were “not statistically significant” in leading to care home deaths from Covid-19, with Public Health Scotland saying other factors such as care home size were more important.

However, concerns over the accuracy of comments from ministers, including Nicola Sturgeon, were raised by the Office for Statistical Regulation, which said data showed evidence “consistent with a causal relationship between positivity and outbreak”.

Scottish Conservatives have criticised the Scottish Government 'spinning' a report into care home outbreaks of Covid-19

The government had come under significant pressure on the policy to discharge patients into care homes without a negative Covid-19 test in the early stages of the pandemic.

Donald Cameron, the Scottish Conservative’s health spokesperson, said the Freedom of Information request by the party showed the Scottish Government had spent almost a week planning their “spin” of the report.

Public Health Scotland confirmed they had briefed ministers on the “key findings” of the report on Friday 23 October, three days before being handed the report itself.

Reacting, Mr Cameron said: “SNP spin is contaminating Scottish public life, but even by their cynical standards this is shocking.

"Is there no subject too important or sensitive that the SNP spin machine is not willing to bend and manipulate? It seems not from these revelations.

“Now we find out that the SNP were hard at work spinning a response to downplay the report’s findings on transferring Covid-positive patients into care homes.

“That sums up the SNP’s attitude towards the scandal in our care homes. They're putting spin before honesty, transparency and common decency.

"This was a time for contrition and serious leadership from the SNP. Instead of finding out what really happened with an urgent public inquiry, they worked-up a detailed plan of how to spin the story.

“That is a complete dereliction of duty towards our most vulnerable.”

Health secretary Jeane Freeman was asked about the claims during the Scottish Government’s daily coronavirus briefing on Friday.

Refuting the claims, she said they were “absolute nonsense” and the government "didn't spend any time trying to spin anything”.

She said: “Remember this is an independent report, independent of government and with academics from both Glasgow and Edinburgh University.

"The report says what the report says and we have been very clear in our response to that report and very clear in what we do believe what should be done and how we should act going forward and the steps we have taken over many months to try and ensure we have what is now in effect seven layers of protection around care homes and the residents in care homes.

"If people want to make political capital or attempt to make political capital out of this, then that is their prerogative, but I think it is much more serious than that.

"I take the safety of our residents and our staff in care homes much more seriously than that.”

A Public Health Scotland spokesperson said: “The final report was made available to key stakeholders, including the Scottish Government, under pre-release access on Monday 26th October, as previously stated.

"Pre-release access of up to 5 working days is a standard practice which is in place for all statistical publications in Scotland. Recipients of pre-release access are noted in Appendix 3 of the report.

"Public Health Scotland briefed Scottish Government on the key findings of the report on Friday 23rd October but they were not given access to the report until Monday 26th October.”

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