A FORMER Scottish Government official believes a coronavirus pandemic “would be quite useful” in clearing delayed discharge levels because “people would be taken out of the system”.
Professor June Andrews recognised her comments were “horrific” but gave an honest assessment of the potential consequences of a large-scale coronavirus outbreak.
Prof Andrews is a former director of the Scottish Government’s Centre for Change and Innovation. She was also previously the Scottish Secretary of the Royal College of Nursing and the director of nursing at NHS Forth Valley.
READ MORE: Hospital bed blocking worsens as NHS Scotland braces for coronavirus
Speaking at Holyrood’s public audit committee, she said: “If you’re on the board of a care home company, a pandemic is one of things you think about as a potential damage to your business because of the number of older people it’s going to take out of the system.
“Curiously, ripping off the sticking plaster, in a hospital that has 92 delayed discharges, a pandemic would be quite useful because your hospital would work because these people would be taken out of the system.”
She added: “That sounds like it’s a horrific thing to say – but it is the case that somehow or other, we’ve put people in the wrong places by not having the kind of strategic views that we should have.
“That means that politicians who don’t want to think about bad things before the election, need to think about putting income tax up even higher in order to pay for more care in care homes and they need to think about whether they reinstate geriatric hospitals.”
READ MORE: Coronavirus: Scotland confirms six cases of condition after 1,256 tests
Dr Lewis Morrison, Scottish chair of the British Medical Association, told the committee that “after the winter we have had and with the prospect of a coronavirus outbreak”, there is “potentially a clear big mismatch” between the health and social care needs and targets health leaders are asked to meet.
READ MORE: WATCH: Former nursing chief's 'horrific' coronavirus bed blocking comments
He added: “I actually think that one of the ill wins if we do have a significant viral outbreak is that I think it will teach us, probably some hard lessons, but it’s going to teach us some very, very important things about our services – which we must learn from.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel