Borders MP calls for testing of region’s care home staff to be stepped up

That admission, made at a meeting via video-link of the UK Government’s Scottish affairs committee yesterday, June 11, during questioning by Mr Lamont came after Public Health Scotland figures revealed that only 22 care home staff in the Borders were tested last week.

Ms Freeman, MSP for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley, initially defended current testing levels, putting any shortfall down to the policy being “relatively new”, and when asked if she thought sufficient tests are being carried out, replied: “Yes, I do.”

She reversed that position after being confronted with last week’s figures by the Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk MP and told that Scottish Borders Council had only been allocated 480 tests for its 1,200 care home staff.

“The chief executive at Scottish Borders Council, Tracey Logan, said there were not enough tests to do even half of the care workers in the Borders,” he told her.

That prompted Ms Freeman to admit: “ Well, that would not be sufficient because I imagine that doesn’t cover all care home workers in the Borders, so the self-evident answer to that is no, that is not sufficient, which is why I have issued that requirements to our NHS boards who are responsible for delivering this.”

Speaking afterwards, Mr Lamont said: “The tragic deaths in care homes in the Borders and indeed across Scotland are deeply distressing.

“I am glad that the health secretary was able to finally admit that testing care home staff has just not been good enough so far.

“After some of the revelations this week, it is essential that Jeane Freeman takes responsibility and increases testing for care home staff immediately.

“Staff and residents, as well as their families, need to be reassured that their loved ones are safe.”

Ms Freeman also came in for criticism from Aberdeenshire MP Andrew Bowie over the policy of transferring elderly patients from hospitals to care homes to free up beds ready for an anticipated influx of Covid-19 sufferers.

He asked her: “You suggest that lessons should be learned. That’s a bit of an understatement. Do you regret the decision to send 1,031 people from hospitals to carehomes?”

Ms Freeman replied: “Based on the information and the evidence we had at that time, many of the steps we took were common across the four nations for the UK in terms of discharging patients to care homes, although the majority did go home.

“That’s not the view that I would take. That’s not to say that I don’t think, with hindsight, there are lessons to be learned and decisions that were made at the time that I would not necessarily make now.”

Ms Freeman defended the Scottish Government’s approach to relaxing lockdown laws, though, saying:“Our approach, I think, differs from what I have observed of the UK Government’s approach in that we are much more phased and planned and resisting the pressure to make announcements between official reviews because we don’t consider that that is helpful in the public understanding of what we’re doing.

“We do require compliance and co-operation. We wouldn’t want to squander that by not planning how we are going to release lockdown – in other words, having all the key stakeholders with us, the guidance ready, so that on the date we say we’re going to do X or Y, we are actually ready to deliver.”