Freeman accused of ‘losing grip’ on NHS staff testing
HEALTH Secretary Jeane Freeman has been accused of having ‘completely lost her grip’ on the Covid-19 pandemic after admitting she does not know when nHS staff will be routinely tested for the virus.
Miss Freeman said work is under way to determine the feasibility of testing medics within ‘certain areas of the hospital’ in a bid to boost capacity.
But she said nHS workers – including doctors and nurses on the front line – are ‘not yet’ being tested regularly, despite the virus first being recorded in Scotland more than three months ago.
Scottish Conservative leader Jackson Carlaw said: ‘The Health Secretary appears to have completely lost her grip on the Covid crisis.
‘The SnP government promised to dramatically increase hospital staff testing – but still, weeks later, not only is nothing in place, Miss Freeman cannot tell us when it will be.’
Appearing on the BBC’s Politics Scotland programme yesterday, Miss Freeman said the testing of hospital staff was part of the Government’s plan to ‘slowly and safely’ reopen the nHS.
However, when asked if all nHS staff are now being tested regularly, the SnP minister said: ‘no, not yet.’ She added: ‘I can’t give you that timescale [on rolling out routine testing] right now because our boards are busy working up how they are going to restart and discussing that with the clinical teams involved.
‘There is discussion under way with the clinical teams about testing patients immediately before surgery – and alongside that testing the staff involved in their treatment.’
Miss Freeman said officials are now looking at the possibility of opening up certain parts of hospital buildings to use as designated areas for staff testings.
She added: ‘Cancer UK, for example, has asked for what they describe as the creation of a “safe space”. That would be for the increase in cancer work that is part of the remobilising of the nHS and we would look at testing there for both staff and possibly patients.’
Scottish Labour health spokeswoman Monica Lennon said: ‘We know that regular and routine testing of staff is a vital part of our fight against coronavirus, so it beggars belief that the Health Secretary still has no idea when nHS workers will get vital Covid-19 tests.
‘Promising routine and regular testing is easy, but this government is failing to deliver. We need a guarantee from the Government they will stop wasting unused testing capacity.’
Miss Freeman also admitted that the drive to test all care home workers was not moving fast enough.
Deaths in care homes have overtaken those in hospitals, with the national Records of Scotland (nRS) reporting 1,818 deaths in care homes linked to Covid-19. This is compared to 1,815 in hospitals.
Yesterday, Miss Freeman said: ‘not all of them have moved as fast as I need them to.’
She added: ‘It is not correct to say [testing] is not happening. It is correct it is not happening consistently in a planned way across the country.’
Miss Freeman has now written to all health boards across the country urging them to publish testing figures.
Asked if she could guarantee that care homes workers are not moving between facilities with known Covid-19 outbreaks and those without, Miss Freeman said: ‘What I can tell you is that should not happen, but you’ve got to remember that I do not control the way they operate.
‘Care homes are businesses, either private or independent sector or run by local authorities so I need their cooperation’.
But Scots Tory leader Mr Carlaw said: ‘Miss Freeman couldn’t even give the public basic information about where patients who contracted Covid in hospital died. The SnP abandoned care homes to be ravaged by Covid, they appear to have done the same to hospitals also.
‘Jeane Freeman’s excuses keep getting thinner meanwhile thousands of tests are unused each day. nicola Sturgeon says she takes responsibility for her government’s approach to Covid and I agree – the First Minister is responsible for these catastrophic failures.’
‘Excuses keep getting thinner’