UK Covid Inquiry Today: Jason Leitch and Devi Sridhar appear amid fallout from Nicola Sturgeon WhatsApp row
Recap with The Scotsman after National Clinical Director Professor Jason Leitch gave evidence to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry.
Live: Jason Leitch faces the UK Covid-19 Inquiry
Key Events
- The UK Covid-19 Inquiry continues to sit in Edinburgh to examine the Scottish pandemic response
- National Clinical Director Professor Jason Leitch is to give evidence
- This comes after it was revealed Chief Medical Officer Professor Sir Gregor Smith encouraged colleagues to delete their WhatsApps
Welcome to The Scotsman's live blog on the UK Covid-19 Inquiry where we are expecting to hear from National Clinical Director Professor Jason Leitch.
Before we get underway, recap what happened yesterday when Chief Medical Officer Professor Sir Gregor Smith appeared at the inquiry:
Professor Leitch says it is fair to say his job at the start of the pandemic was more about supporting health boards rather than public health. He was focused on the quality and safety of the healthcare system, which the inquiry says is a “unique” role compared to the rest of the UK - Professor Leitch says while it is a unique name, it’s not necessarily a unique job as there are people in England, Wales and Northern Ireland who cover the same things he did.
His job “changed dramatically” during the coronavirus pandemic. One in providing advice to ministers on a regular basis sometimes multiple times a day. Principal role to communicate with the public, parliamentarians and stakeholders for who the pandemic was having an impact so “I became the person who did most of the clinical communication”.
Prof Leitch has just been asked about former Chief Medical Officer Catherine Calderwood, who resigned after breaking coronavirus lockdown rules. Prof Leith says the team “lost a friend and colleague”, but said there was not a noticeable gap when she left.
However he says a lot of the clinical communication then fell to him and he went from having done no press conferences to doing a fair few over the course of a weekend.
Professor Leitch on Catherine Calderwood said: “I was concerned that rule breaks in whatever form they took had influence on public compliance, because it became the subject of interview rather than talking about the guidance.
“This is a concern I share across any high-profile rule breaks across the pandemic.”
Prof Leitch has been asked if Catherine Calderwood monopolised the advice being given to ministers. He says no, she was the principal person who took advice to the First Minister, but she sought that advice from a number of sources inside and outside the government.
He says Catherine Calderwood and himself had “good relationships” with the former first minister Nicola Sturgeon and former health secretary Jeane Freeman.
Lead counsel says it appears Prof Leitch is “distancing yourself from responsibility for giving advice” to the government. Prof Leitch said: “No, not at all.”
The first real line of questioning from the lead counsel for the UK Covid Inquiry, Jamie Dawson KC, relates to the prominence of Jason Leitch’s role within the Scottish Government during the pandemic. Mr Leitch said he “translated” advice from key specialisms, such as vaccine research, for elected decision makers, but routinely stressed he was part of a “broad” set of advisers, and that the Chief Medical Officer is the senior adviser to the government on such matters. “It sounds like you are trying to distance yourself from responsibility,” Mr Dawson said, but Mr Leitch replied “that would not be fair at all”.
We are now getting details about a WhatsApp group called ‘Star chamber’ which ran from October 2020 to early 2023.
We’ve just seen a message from October 2020 where Prof Leitch recommends putting Lanarkshire into level four restrictions, the central belt plus Dundee and minus East Lothian and Edinburgh in level three, everywhere else in level two, and the islands and the top half of the Highlands in level one.
Prof Leitch says this WhatsApp group was used to get clinical consensus between him, Jim McMenemon and Prof Sir Gregor Smith.
The consul says this shows that far from being the principal clinical communicator, Prof Leitch was a key advisor on key decisions in the management of the pandemic.
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