3 days ago
Glasgow Queen Elizabeth hospital had most Covid deaths probed by Crown Office
Prosecutors are probing the deaths at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital as part of a wider investigation from the pandemic.
A Glasgow flagship hospital had the highest number of Covid deaths probed by the Crown Office, it has been revealed.
Prosecutors are probing the deaths at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital as part of a wider investigation from the pandemic. As well as hospital settings, care homes are also being looked into.
NHS Glasgow Greater Glasgow and Clyde have been warned that it has questions to answer about why such a significant number of Covid deaths are being probed at its hospitals. A total of 133 cases are still being looked at - a 43% of the entire total.
Louise Slorance, whose husband Andrew died at the QEUH in 2020 after contracting Covid during cancer treatment, is still seeking answers from the health board about his death.
She blames them for him catching the disease despite being in isolation.
She wrote on X: "COPFS Covid deaths investigation team (CDIT) statistics on COVID deaths in hospitals offer some important insights, namely on our largest health board, NHS GGC & the effectiveness of @scotgov flagship super hospital, the QEUH. 43% of the death investigations being carried out by CDIT are in NHS GGC hospitals.
"30% of these deaths occurred at the QEUH. The QEUH has just 22% of GGC's bed capacity. The disproportionate nature of QEUH COVID deaths is only exacerbated when you consider this is a single bedded hospital. As the Project Director for the #QEUH told the @ScotHospInquiry last week single rooms are the optimum for stopping the transfer of infection.
"Single bedrooms alone should have led to lower nosocomial COVID infection. Add in state of the art facilities (that's what we were told, not what was provided) & COVID mitigations, the expectation must be a lower rate than other older hospitals & the lowest across Scotland.
"Yet here we are with Scotland's flagship QEUH hospital with the highest number of COVID deaths reported to COPFS and, CDIT investigations second only to another GGC ran hospital the GRI. Explanations must be provided for this anomaly."
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said: "We would like to offer our condolences to the loved ones of any patient who has died. As well as looking after a core population of more than 1.3 million, hospitals across NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde offer a range of highly specialised regional and national services for people throughout Scotland.
"This means that a high proportion of the sickest patients in the country are treated at our hospitals, and we would like to thank our highly skilled and dedicated staff who do all they can to care for these patients in challenging circumstances.
"Latest Hospital Standardised Mortality Ratio figures from Public Health Scotland show that, despite looking after this high concentration of the most vulnerable patients, NHSGGC has the lowest crude mortality rate of any health board in Scotland outside NHS Shetland.
"Any suggestion that COVID deaths at our hospitals could be attributed to any issues with the standard of care, without taking into account this high concentration of these most vulnerable patients, would be inaccurate and misleading, as well as being insulting and upsetting for our hard-working staff."
