COVID Recovery Secretary John Swinney has said ministers were under pressure to discharge patients from hospitals to care homes from “all political parties”.
The Deputy First Minister was pressed on the High Court decision that the UK Government broke the law by failing to protect care home residents in England from the virus during the pandemic.
He insisted it was “fundamental” the government answers questions on the decision at the public inquiry, and that the probe should not take years to complete.
In March and April 2020, an unknown number of elderly patients in England, who had contracted Covid and either died or passed on the disease to others, were discharged from hospital into care homes.
This was found to be unlawful as the government had failed to consider the risk of non-symptomatic transmission of the virus on vulnerable residents.
In Scotland, a number of elderly patients were also discharged to care homes during the same time frame. A situation Swinney claimed was “similar but not identical”.
However, on the BBC Sunday Show, Swinney said that the government was under cross-party pressure at the time.
Swinney said: “I think it's important to reflect that back in the spring of 2020, all political parties were arguing that the government should encourage the discharge of individuals from hospitals.
“Which I think generally were viewed to be the places that we're going to be most seriously affected by COVID into care homes, and there was cross party pressure on the government to ensure that was the case.”
At the beginning of the pandemic, more than half of elderly patients discharged from hospital to nearly 200 Scottish care homes had not been tested for the virus.
Between 16 March 2020 and 31 March 2021 the Care Inspectorate received 3774 notifications of deaths related to Covid-19 from care homes.
Swinney was also asked by the BBC if he accepted that the same things went wrong in Scotland as cited in the High Court case. The Scottish Government could face legal action from bereaved families.
The Deputy FM said: “The ruling that's come from the High Court of England, of course relates to a situation of the circumstances contained within England and we took an approach in Scotland, which was similar but not identical.”
Swinney then pointed to the public inquiry set to go ahead under Lady Poole, adding that the issue will be a “fundamental part of the remit” of the probe.
The SNP MSP was asked if similar criticism could be levelled at the Scottish Government as they also didn’t consider “the risks to residents through asymptomatic transmission”.
Swinney replied: “That criticism has been levelled at the Scottish Government and so of course it is absolutely fundamental we address that criticism.”
The Covid recovery secretary added that from March 13 the Scottish Government were advising “that it was best in care homes for individuals to be in the rooms to reduce communal activity, to stop visiting and to ensure that anyone being discharged into a care home was being discharged on an appropriate and clinically assessed basis”.
Swinney also said that the “scientific discussion” around asymptomatic transmission “didn’t get to a point of certainty” until spring 2020.
Swinney added that the inquiry was “very close” to finalising the terms of reference for the probe and insisted it should not take year to complete.
Later on the Sunday Show, Scottish Tory MSP Craig Hoy was also probed about the care home issue.
Asked for his response to the Deputy FM’s comments, Hoy said: “I think Mr. Swinney has to make sure that those families get the answers as quickly as possible.
“We're now more than two years into the pandemic and those who lost loved ones are looking for answers.
“They're looking to see who was responsible for taking those decisions, because only by getting those answers and getting to those facts, will they get the justice and then ultimately the closure that they want so they can go on and properly grieve the family members that they lost.”
Asked if the Tory party should have been a more forceful opposition in Holyrood to the plans, Hoy admitted they were supportive, but pointed out he was not an MSP at the time, having been elected in May 2021.
He added: “The Conservative Party in the UK were obviously grappling with the same levels of advice but what is quite clear is that something very, very serious went wrong.
“And I think when you look back and see the images that we saw coming from Spain and Italy, we should have been thinking at that point that we needed to put a very protective system around care homes, they bore the brunt of this pandemic and lessons quite clearly need to be learned.”
