Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard has called for Jeane Freeman to "come clean" over the scale of discharging untested hospital patients into care homes.
Delayed discharge figures from the Scottish Government on Wednesday revealed that 921 patients were released from hospitals into care homes in March - the first month of the coronavirus crisis.
But it was not until April 21 that a policy for mandatory testing of all new care home residents was announced by the Scottish Government.
Mr Leonard has now raised concerns over the figures when the Health Secretary previously gave assurances that the majority of those untested patients were sent to their own homes.
He said: "This new information is deeply disturbing and Jeane Freeman has serious questions to answer as to why she claimed that the vast majority of untested discharged patients were sent to their own homes.
READ MORE: Health secretary warned of PTSD risk in Scotland's frontline workers
"Delayed discharge has been a challenge for the NHS for some time and questions need to be asked about the Scottish Government's approach to discharging untested patients into care homes to free up beds.
"We cannot have the safety of patients, staff and residents imperilled by an ill-advised and dangerous rush to end delayed discharge.
"The impact of coronavirus in Scotland's care homes has been little short of horrifying and it is clear that discharging infected patients to care homes has played a key role in fanning the flames of this virus.
"The Cabinet secretary owes it to the people of Scotland and the families of the residents and staff affected to come clean over the failure of the Government to protect the most vulnerable."
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon also defended the decision on Friday, admitting she still "agonises" over previous steps she has taken during the crisis.
Her comments came after former Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson also criticised the decision to "put people that may or may not be infected into an enclosed environment of incredibly vulnerable people".
READ MORE: Jeane Freeman: Hospital patients may not have gone to care homes if we had known more about virus
A Scottish Government spokesman said: "There is widespread public endorsement for the approach that we are taking in Scotland and ministers are focused on mitigating the effects of what is an unprecedented global pandemic, and making decisions on the best information available.
"The Health Secretary has issued a letter to make clear that the delayed discharge numbers quoted on April 15 was an error, and apologised for this.
"The Scottish Government has brought forward a number of actions to help keep care home residents and care workers safe and will continue to focus our efforts and attention on that."
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