First anti-viral Covid pill approved for use in UK – The Scotsman
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/in Covid-19, Economic Matters, Scottish Government, STV News /by sm_adminNHS board tells patients not to go to A&E unless ‘life-threatening’ – BBC news
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/in BBC, Covid-19, United Kingdom, Unity Matters /by sm_adminScottish Government’s NHS remobilisation group ‘abandoned’ – The Scotsman
/in Covid-19, Health Matters, Scottish Government, The Scotsman /by sm_adminScottish Government silent on pandemic handling criticism amid calls for Holyrood inquiry – The Scotsman
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/in Covid-19, GB news, Scotland Under the SNP, Scottish devolution /by sm_adminNearly 200 Scottish care homes took in mainly untested patients – BBC news
/in BBC, Covid inquiry, Covid-19, Health Matters, Scottish Government, SNP /by sm_adminPlease click the image below to read more:
In the early days of the pandemic more than half of elderly hospital patients discharged to nearly 200 Scottish care homes had not been tested for Covid.
Data obtained by the BBC from Public Health Scotland (PHS) provides the clearest picture yet on which homes took in untested and positive patients.
A lawyer acting for bereaved families at an upcoming inquiry called the data “explosive evidence”.
Aamer Anwar claimed it was proof that people’s lives had been put at risk.
The figures, which were released 11 months after BBC Scotland had asked for them, focus on hospital discharges between March and May 2020 – which was the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
The PHS data, released under freedom of information laws, appears in this interactive dashboard and shows every hospital discharge by individual care home in Scotland.
It reveals what proportion of people discharged were untested or positive and what proportion of beds might have been occupied by discharged patients.
Although the data cannot be used to link discharges to outbreaks or deaths in any given home, solicitor Mr Anwar believed it proved that lives had been put at risk.
He is acting on behalf of members of Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice and told BBC Scotland: “The data supports what many bereaved families have always suspected, that elderly patients were discharged without any regard for a duty of care owed to them, or to residents and care home staff.
“Many of the grieving families I represent describe what took place in our care homes as a massacre that could have been avoided, had a simple test taken place prior to discharge.
“The data makes for explosive evidence for a pending Scottish Covid-19 Public Inquiry.”
Covid, ambulance waiting times, energy bills and empty supermarket shelves have created a perfect storm that reveals how badly Scotland is governed – The Scotsman
/in Covid-19, Politics Matters, Scottish devolution, Scottish Government, SNP /by sm_adminPlease click below to read more:
It is difficult at the moment not to feel that we are in the very eye of a momentous political and economic version of exactly that.
For 18 months, we had endured the seemingly unending and life-threatening waves of the pandemic, to the point where we seemed almost to have become inured to it.
We are braced – but not prepared – for the national and personal economic impact of the end of furlough, the Universal Credit uplift and business support.
And now we find that our energy bills could rocket, inflation is rising, the impact of Brexit is contributing to empty supermarket shelves, and the Scottish government is putting our travel and hospitality industries at a disadvantage to the rest of the UK.
That list was already challenging enough without the stark realisation over the past few weeks that our NHS, which has got us through this crisis, is now at breaking point.
I know that is a claim which politicians are often accused of making simply to weaponise a public service which is held in such specific and special regard by so many of us.
But sadly, all the evidence tells us that the claim is true. Both for the institution itself and the many courageous and tireless staff at its heart.
It must be tempting for those responsible for the well-being of the NHS to blame its current predicament on all the other elements of the storm. That somehow the crisis which has necessitated calling in the Armed Forces to support our ambulance service is purely the result of the circumstances we find ourselves in. That they can look to the example of our energy industry which is defending itself with evidence of an unusual lack of wind and solar resources and a fire on an interconnector.
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