Watching A Politician Being Gently Skewered

by Les May

ALMOST every Sunday afternoon I watch the Politics Scotland programme. Unlike his English equivalents, the presenter Gordon Brewer, never tries to trap the politician he is questioning into a ‘TV moment’ just to boost his ego. Instead he is quiet, courteous, persistent and gets results.

A week ago I watched him question the Scottish Health Secretary, Jeane Freeman, about the situation in Scottish care homes and specifically about the release of people from hospital into care homes.   She ‘waffled’ her way through an answer claiming that care homes should and could provide for such new residents an unrealistic level of nursing support.  On 15 May the guidance was changed, perhaps because Freeman realised she had been well and truly ‘skewered’.

Almost a half of the deaths in Scotland resulting from Covid19 disease have been in care homes.  At one such care home in Portree, the main town of the Isle of Skye, nearly all its 34 residents and half its staff have contracted Covid-19 and in the last 10 days seven residents have died, with dozens of staff sent home and told to self-isolate.

In order to stabilise the situation NHS Highland has stepped in to play a greater role in running of the home on Skye after the Care Inspectorate raised concerns.  The Scottish Government has announced it will fast -track emergency laws which will allow it to step in and take over the running of failing care homes.  On yesterday’s programme Gordon Brewer raised the question of whether the care home sector should be ‘Nationalised’.

Using the ‘N’ word will not be well received in some circles, but it is surely worth asking why we are farming out the nursing care of the elderly and frail to private companies, designed to return a profit,  instead of giving them the best nursing care available from NHS staff. 

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