Health chiefs spent thousands of pounds spying on Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar after he raised concerns about a scandal-hit hospital.
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC) paid £15,000 a year to a company with links to Cambridge Analytica to monitor three opposition MSPs.
The Sunday Mail last month revealed how the health board had spied on widow Louise Slorance and posts about her late husband after she criticised NHSGGC over his care.
Louise, a mum of three, has been fighting for answers since discovering Andrew had contracted an infection while waiting for a stem cell transplant at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital.
Now a series of Freedom of Information requests by this newspaper has uncovered the extent of the health board’s online spying operation.
Along with Louise’s social media accounts health bosses were also spying on Scottish Labour Anas Sarwar, Jackie Baillie and Paul O’Kane.
All three have been heavily critical of NHSGGC in the wake of the scandals which have emerged about the £842m QEUH and potential links between the building and infections in cancer patients.
Sarwar said: “This is yet another astonishing revelation from this scandal-ridden health board.
“Our NHS is at breaking point, but NHSGGC is spending taxpayer money spying on their own staff, bereaved families and on politicians raising concerns.
“This health board’s leadership have shown time and time again that they are not willing to take responsibility for the awful tragedies that occurred on their watch.
“They will go to any lengths to try and cover up their catastrophic failures – they need to go.”
The board was also monitoring SNP MSP Stuart McMillan who has commented positively on the NHS’s work in his constituency of Inverclyde and Greenock.
It later extended its spying operation to all West of Scotland MSPs including Humza Yousaf and Nicola Sturgeon.
McMillan has now contacted NHSGGC to ask why they were spying on him and said he was concerned about the board’s communications operation.
He said: “As an elected member, I expect a level of scrutiny on my social media, but it seems strange for a public body to be doing this proactively. I have written to NHSGCC for clarity on why monitoring was taking place.
“For some time, I have raised what I perceive to be deficiencies within NHSGGC engagement and communication strategy.
“Following these latest revelations, I will once again push for answers on these concerns.”
NHSGGC also confirmed it was monitoring three of its own staff with their permission as well as one member of the public – Louise Slorance.
Since we revealed the scandal the health board said that it had now removed all individual accounts from its social listening activities.
It still monitors dozens of phrases and words mentioned online, including “stress”, “Glasgow” and “QEUH” and “menopause”.
NHSGGC said: “We can confirm that when the system was set up there were four accounts included, all of whom were frequent commentators about NHSGGC.
“These were the public social media accounts of Anas Sarwar, Jackie Baillie, Stuart McMillan and Paul O’Kane.
“On further review we have removed all individuals from our automated social media monitoring including politicians.”
The health board confirmed it had been paying private firm Meltwater £15,000 a year since April 20222 to keep track of what is being said about the organisation online.
It said: “It would be very costly and resource-intensive for us to have an overview of all conversations taking place on social media about NHSGGC manually.
“Social listening software enables an organisation to automate monitoring of social media content related to its activities and track these over time to establish public opinion trends.
“It is entirely legal and all social platforms have terms and conditions that social listening services must adhere to.
“Such software only monitors content which is publicly and freely available. It does not access social media accounts that have been marked by the owner/author as private.
“A limited number of the NHSGGC communications team are able to access an online dashboard to review interactions, mentions and posts about our organisation and services, based on a range of defined search terms.
“An automated notification in relation to set search terms is sent to members of the team on a daily basis.”
At NHSGGC’s board meeting last week Labour councillor Martin McCluskey, a board member, said many had been “appalled to find out what we had done and what we are doing”.
Chief executive Jane Grant said the spying against Louise was an “isolated incident” which was “complex and fast-moving” and there had been “legal issues” involving the company conducting the spying which had slowed down their response.
She said: “We have learned a lot of lessons here about pace and the need to be incredibly sensitive towards patients and families who have been bereaved.”
But Louise said: “The person responsible for this spying declared war against a family who were also asking questions. She is still in post.
“Jane Grant can try to explain this sorry episode away but it speaks to the whole toxic culture at NHSGGC.”
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