{"id":488766,"date":"2025-10-10T16:28:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T16:28:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/488766\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T16:28:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T16:28:14","slug":"freeman-tells-inquiry-government-was-naive-in-hospital-oversight-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/488766\/","title":{"rendered":"Freeman tells inquiry Government was \u2018naive\u2019 in hospital oversight"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Scottish Government was \u201cnaive\u201d in its oversight of a health board at the centre of infection concerns at a flagship hospital, former health secretary Jeane Freeman has admitted.<\/strong><\/p>\n

An inquiry was told Freeman believed leaders at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC) took a \u201cnothing to see here\u201d approach when concerns emerged about the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital (QEUH).<\/p>\n

The former SNP minister, who held the health portfolio between 2018 and 2021, gave evidence to the Scottish Hospitals Inquiry on Friday.<\/p>\n

She described a meeting in early 2019 with the health board\u2019s leaders, which left her feeling they did not appreciate the \u201cseriousness\u201d of the situation.<\/p>\n

A few months earlier, the hospital was forced to \u201cdecant\u201d patients from some wards in response to a water contamination incident.<\/p>\n

The inquiry has been examining the design and construction of the QEUH in Glasgow and the Royal Hospital for Children, which are on the same campus.<\/p>\n

It was launched in the wake of deaths linked to infections, including that of 10-year-old Milly Main.<\/p>\n

Inquiry counsel Fred Mackintosh KC asked Freeman about the nature of oversight on NHSGGC.<\/p>\n

He suggested there may have been a failure in the \u201coversight and scrutiny\u201d of the health board.<\/p>\n

Freeman said: \u201cI\u2019m not sure I think it would be fair to say it\u2019s a failure of oversight and scrutiny.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it is naive of Government not to have that situation \u2013 to maintain that situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Freeman said on the other hand, some had criticised her approach as health secretary as being too \u201ccentralist\u201d.<\/p>\n

The former health secretary said she had later set up an independent review into hospital infections.<\/p>\n

NHSGGC was moved into stage four of the Government\u2019s \u201cescalation framework\u201d in response to the infections issue in November 2018.<\/p>\n

The inquiry also heard about a meeting in early 2019, where Freeman and senior Government officials spoke to the health board\u2019s leadership.<\/p>\n

Written evidence from Freeman showed she \u201ccame away from that meeting with a general impression of surprise and concern about NHSGGC\u2019s guardedness and downplaying of the importantness of the situation\u201d.<\/p>\n

Freeman said she was taken aback by the fact the medical director asked her why she was attending the meeting \u2013 despite her being the health secretary at the time.<\/p>\n

Her written statement added: \u201cMy impression, at that time, was that there was a general \u2018nothing to see here\u2019 response from NHSGGC.\u201d<\/p>\n

The inquiry, being held before Lord Brodie in Edinburgh, continues.<\/p>\n

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\"WhatsApp<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Scottish Government was \u201cnaive\u201d in its oversight of a health board at the centre of infection concerns…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":488767,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7826],"tags":[748,918,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-488766","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-glasgow","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-glasgow","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-scotland","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115350819704259411","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/488767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}