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Flagship superhospital was not what we expected, medical director tells inquiry

The Scottish Hospitals Inquiry is currently investigating the construction of the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital campus in Glasgow.

Nick Forbes
Thursday 10 October 2024 14:22 BST
The medical director of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has been giving evidence to the Scottish Hospitals Inquiry (Andrew Milligan/PA)
The medical director of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has been giving evidence to the Scottish Hospitals Inquiry (Andrew Milligan/PA) (PA Archive)

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The medical director of a health board has told a public inquiry that ā€œwe did not get what we expectedā€ with a flagship hospital at the centre of infection concerns.

The Scottish Hospitals Inquiry heard evidence on Thursday from Dr Jennifer Armstrong, the medical director of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, which runs the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital (QEUH) campus in Glasgow.

The inquiry is currently investigating the construction of the QEUH campus, which includes the Royal Hospital for Children.

It was launched in the wake of deaths linked to infections, including that of 10-year-old Milly Main.

Dr Armstrong said to the inquiry: ā€œI thought we were getting a fantastic hospital, because weā€™ve been working so long for this, but we did not get what we expected.ā€

She said she first became aware of issues with the hospital in the middle of 2015.

She said she learned wards intended for adult and child bone marrow patients, and for people with infectious diseases, were not ā€œfit for patientsā€, with holes in the walls and no Hepa air filters.

The problems were such that within months of being brought into the QEUH, adult bone marrow patients were moved back to their previous accommodation at the Beatson facility.

Lead counsel to the inquiry Fred Mackintosh KC asked Dr Armstrong whether after learning of the issues she became ā€œsuspicious of whether the project team and/or the contractor had done their jobs properlyā€.

He added: ā€œYou were the medical director, and so you could have said: ā€˜I want to know what else is wrong.ā€™

ā€œBecause we do know now that there were problems with the water system and there were problems with the general ventilation, but you didnā€™t find those out.

ā€œAnd it may be, and Iā€™ll put it out to you that you didnā€™t ask, and maybe you should have done.ā€

She replied that she did not think it was in the ā€œremit of the medical director to look at the areas that youā€™re talking aboutā€.

It is not within the remit of, I believe, any medical director to actually then go into the estates side and be able to ask questions around, 'what was the water system like?'

Dr Jennifer Armstrong

She continued: ā€œWhen we had problems with the bone marrow transplant units and indeed any other problems that arose, then I was very, very keen on sorting it out as well as keen on the patient safety aspect.

ā€œBut it is not within the remit of, I believe, any medical director to actually then go into the estates side and be able to ask questions around, ā€˜what was the water system like?ā€™

ā€œThat is actually the responsibility of the project director, the director of estates and the general management system.ā€

She was also asked about her handling of concerns raised on a number of occasions by infection control doctors (ICDs) regarding patient safety in the affected wards.

These included some staff using the hospitalā€™s whistleblowing procedures to escalate concerns around the ventilation and water systems at the hospital that they felt were not being taken seriously by management.

Dr Armstrong accepted those raising concerns had been acting in accordance with the ā€œduties they hold under good medical practiceā€ and that they were bringing up ā€œgood pointsā€.

However she said there were ā€œother ways it could have been dealt with before it reached meā€.

She added that while she did not think senior management had been ā€œwithholdingā€ information from ICDs, she accepted there should have been better systems in place for ā€œcascadingā€ information to them about the actions the hospital was taking to address the problems they were raising.

She also denied that a meeting she had with whistleblowers in 2017 had been ā€œdifficultā€ or ā€œintimidatingā€, or that at one point during the meeting she had told Dr Christine Peters, who was one of the whistleblowers, she was ā€œhead of nothingā€.

She was also asked whether it would have been better if the hospital had been built ā€œin conformity to the guidanceā€ in the first place, given its Ā£800 million price tag.

She replied: ā€œI think if it would have avoided all the issues that we had, that would have been fantastic, because the stress the patients were put under, particularly the 2A (paediatric bone marrow transplant) patients, was enormous.

ā€œSo absolutely, I think that we should have had that.ā€

The inquiry continues.

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