Care home bosses: Did ministers try to pass on the blame?

Government ‘must admit own failings at inquiry’

AN INQUIRY into the Scottish Government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic must probe whether ministers ‘unreasonably’ tried to pass blame to others, care home bosses have said.

Owners of independent homes have launched a lobbying group amid fears the Government will seek to pass the buck to the NHS and the care sector.

It follows Nicola Sturgeon’s apology for the chaotic rollout of the vaccine passport app before claiming it was due to problems with the health service.

More than 3,200 coronavirus deaths have been linked to care homes. More than half of elderly patients discharged to nearly 200 care homes at the start of the pandemic were not tested for Covid-19.

As of September 19, there have been 11,178 cases of coronavirus among care home residents and 7,164 among staff since the start of the pandemic in March 2020.

Miss Sturgeon has made a commitment

‘Cannot be allowed to pass the buck’

to hold an independent inquiry into her Government’s handling of the pandemic.

The new organisation, Independent Care Homes Scotland (ICHS), has sent a submission outlining what bosses believe should be included in the inquiry’s remit.

One of the founding members of the ICHS, Robert Kilgour, chairman of Renaissance Care, has revealed areas where he wishes he had acted differently at the start of the pandemic, such as shutting down care homes earlier.

But he has urged the Scottish Government to admit its own failings. Mr Kilgour said: ‘The Scottish Government can’t say that mistakes were made and then say it was actually other people. They can’t try to blame the NHS or care homes.’

He added: ‘Residents and their families, as well as our selfless and hard-working team members, have paid a terrible price during this pandemic, with enormous numbers of deaths amidst the most sustained, high-pressure environment our sector has ever seen.

‘The areas we must see addressed include government decisions to empty hospital patients into care homes without any testing in the early days of the pandemic, which had devastating consequences, and the failure to quickly heed industry calls for mandatory, weekly testing of staff.’

Scottish Tory social care spokesman Craig Hoy said: ‘SNP ministers made critical errors at the height of the pandemic which had a devastating impact on our care homes.

Finding out the truth about what happened on our care homes must be a top priority for the inquiry.’

He added: ‘Ministers must face up to what went wrong on their watch and cannot be allowed to pass the buck to frontline care providers.’

The 13-page ICHS document says a judge should probe whether ‘the Scottish Government unreasonably’ sought to ‘pass the responsibility for any issues to others, including the care providers?’

Scottish Labour health spokesman Jackie Baillie said: ‘It speaks volumes that care homes are already worried the SNP will attempt to shift blame on to them.

‘The catastrophic decisions the Scottish Government made during this pandemic are their and theirs alone.’

A Scottish Government spokesman said the inquiry consultation had closed and responses would be considered before the probe is announced.

He added: ‘We will continue to listen to those affected by Covid-19, particularly bereaved families, on what they wish the public inquiry to focus on.’