MSPs to grill Freeman over growing list of children’s care concerns

It also emerged last night that experts believe the troubled paediatric ward in St John’s Hospital in Livingston may be left without round-the-clock cover until 2024.

READ MORE: Health Secretary Jeane Freeman will not rule out intervention over scandal-hit Glasgow hospital 

The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health warned NHS Lothian in August that a return to 24/7 cover could take “three to five years” because of staff shortages and rota problems.

NHS Lothian is already under fire for a year-long delay to the opening of the new £160m Sick Kids hospital in Edinburgh because of botched ventilations systems.

As the problems pile up, Ms Freeman is facing growing calls to resign, although almost all the issues stem from the time of her predecessor, Shona Robison.

It emerged last week that 10-year-old Milly Main had died at the £842m Glasgow super-hospital campus after contracting an infection while recovering from leukaemia in August 2017.

Her mother, Kimberly Darroch, says she is “100 per cent” certain infected water at the hospital was to blame.

It also emerged at the weekend that police are investigating the death of a three-year-old boy - named yesterday by the Daily Record as Mason Djemat - just days later at the Glasgow site.

Ms Freeman told BBC Radio Scotland she had “a great deal of concern” over how NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde had handled the deaths and the information given to families.

She said she would make a parliamentary statement later this week and left the door open to putting the Glasgow health board into “special measures” over any shortcomings.

She said: “It’s always an option. It’s something that we’ve done before in other cases, so of course it’s an option to look at how we escalate any board.... that means that the Government takes a more interventionist role.”

Ms Freeman, who recently announced a public inquiry into building issues at the Glasgow hospital and the Edinburgh Sick Kids, added: “I have a great deal of concern and I have made it really clear that it is unacceptable for this board or any board not to fully inform families.

“A matter of weeks ago, when I met families whose children are in the haematology and oncology wards... following that, I made sure I put someone into that board to make sure families got the detailed answers from the board they are entitled to and required.

“It’s clear, by what I’ve done, that I take this very seriously indeed. Families are entitled to know these matters and the board should act on them.”

Labour MSP Anas Sarwar urged the Health Committee to launch a specific investigation into contaminated water at the Glasgow hospital which would force health board bosses to give evidence.

He said: “No stone must be left unturned in the search for answers for Milly’s parents and all the parents of children who contracted infections.

“Holyrood’s health committee is examining wider issues around Scotland’s healthcare environment, but I believe there now needs to be a specific focus on the water contamination scandal at the QEUH.

“Health board chiefs have tried to cover this up, and they need to urgently appear before MSPs, answer questions about the scale of the crisis, tell the truth, apologise to the whistleblower and staff for attacking them, and apologise to patients, parents and the public.”

READ MORE: Health minister Jeane Freeman says she knew about child's hospital death

Lewis Macdonald, the Committee convener, said: “The issues at Queen Elizabeth University Hospital and Edinburgh’s new Sick Kids Hospital are of deep concern to our Committee. We want to ensure that the public inquiry into the various issues these health facilities have faced is progressing.

“We also want to know what progress has been made in creating a new national body to oversee NHS building projects in future and that the issues regarding the disposal of clinical waste are being addressed. It is absolutely vital that patients in Scotland have faith that all healthcare facilities in Scotland meet the most robust standards of safety and cleanliness and pose no threat to their health.”

The Scottish Tories last night released the minutes of an August 27 meeting of NHS Lothian’s paediatric programme board showing continued problems at St John’s children’s ward.

Staff shortages forced the suspension of full-time care at the ward in July 2017, with four-day re-opening in March ahead of a return to 24/7 care due in October.

However in September, Ms Freeman admitted that timetable had failed and insisted the service would be fully reinstated as soon as possible.

However the minutes show 24/7 care may not resume until 2024.

They show the hospital was finding it “challenging” to open for just four days a week and said it would be “unwise to extend this further at the moment”.

Martin Hill, the chairman of the paediatric programme board, “noted NHS Lothian had been advised by the RCPCH that this [24/7 care] would take three to five years to achieve”.

Tory MSP Miles Briggs said: “The SNP is failing sick children and their families right across the country. It’s bad enough that the flagship paediatric hospital in Edinburgh has been delayed for almost a decade on its watch, but now we learn there are major delays in West Lothian too.

“For more than two years a key children’s unit – which has historically served young patients on a 24/7 basis – has been downgraded.

“Jeane Freeman promised this would be sorted by October, only to admit that wasn’t happening, and now we learn a full reopening could be five years away.

“That’s a complete disgrace. The SNP has been in full charge of health in Scotland since 2007, and only has itself to blame for this mess.

“The nationalists have let down generations of ill youngsters, their families, and the dedicated staff who treat them.”

Lothians Green MSP Alison Johnstone added: “The state of children’s services at NHS Lothian is in meltdown. The board is paying for a hospital it cannot use, cannot staff a ward which has been closed for years, and our young people are being treated at a hospital services had already started to move out of.

“The health secretary has blamed ongoing difficulties with recruitment for the failure to properly reopen this vital children’s ward, but this has been going on since July 2017. Instead of wasting valuable funds maintaining PFI projects for hospitals they can’t even use, NHS resources need to be put into staff. A five-year delay is ridiculous.”

Lothians Labour MSP Neil Findlay said: “The ongoing saga of St John’s that has caused years of stress and drudgery for countless ill children and their families is still dragging on.

“Not only has Jeane Freeman broken her commitment to re-open St John’s by this October but this confirms that she and the health board still have no idea when it will re-open.

“The revelation that the decision not to fully re-open St. John’s was taken weeks before Parliament was informed shows how little regard the SNP have for protocol and the children and families of West Lothian who still had false hope.

“We have had far too many false dawns. The SNP must immediately tackle the chronic staff shortage at St. John’s so the ward is up and running safely for patients again as early as possible.

“The terrible situation we have here is the direct result of SNP incompetence and arrogance. The children of West Lothian should not be made to suffer any more.”

NHS Lothian Medical Director Dr Tracey Gillies said the safety of children would always be the “overriding priority” in decisions related to services in the Children’s Ward at St John’s.

“We have made encouraging progress in moving towards a safe and sustainable out-of-hours rota, but are continuing our enhanced efforts to recruit the required staff which will allow us to fully re-open 24/7.

“In the meantime parents should not do anything differently and if they need access to healthcare should still contact their GP, out of hours services via NHS24 or go straight to the Emergency Department, if required.”

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “It was in 2016 that the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health reported that the suggested recruitment strategy would take three to five years to allow the reopening of the inpatient children’s ward.

“So it is totally wrong and misleading to suggest that it would be five years from 2019.

“Patient safety is always our main concern and, despite extensive recruitment efforts, the unanimous clinical view was that it was not possible to safely reinstate the full 24/7 service at St John’s in Livingston from October.

“The Health Secretary has been clear in committing to the full 24/7 reinstatement of the service as soon as it is safe to do so and has been assured that NHS Lothian will continue their recruitment efforts to make sure they can deliver on the commitments they have made to parents and children and the staff at St John’s.”