THE UK Government ordered suppliers of life-saving kit to “prioritise” the NHS in England over Scotland during the pandemic, it was claimed at the Covid-19 inquiry.
Former Scottish health secretary Jeane Freeman confirmed statements from an inquiry lawyer who also revealed that the Foreign Office had instructed UK embassies to withdraw support from the Scottish Government when negotiating contracts abroad.
Freeman agreed with the lawyer’s assertion that “the suppliers of PPE in England had been instructed to prioritise English NHS settings over Scotland, even where suppliers were contractually committed to Scottish supply”.
The former SNP MSP said she had raised the matter at a meeting with Matt Hancock (below), then the English health secretary.
At a UK Covid-19 Inquiry hearing in London on Monday, Freeman said: “In terms of the particular meeting, if I'm completely honest, I did not expect Mr Hancock to say, ‘Yes, you're absolutely right, and that's shocking, and I'll make sure it doesn't happen.’
“But what I know I was doing was laying a marker down that said, we are aware of this, and I now expect you to do something about it, without you actually admitting that it exists.”
The Scottish Greens said that the UK Government’s decision put patients at risk.
Gillian Mackay (above), the party’s health spokesperson, told The National: “Health and social care workers and patients could have been put at risk by the decisions of the UK Government to prioritise NHS England over Scotland, and that is concerning when it comes to contingency planning for possible future events.
“A core part of the learning from the Covid inquiry must be how we handle any possible global health events in future.
“There must be measures taken to ensure that workers do not feel they are at risk if they have to work through another pandemic, and that patients also feel safe too.”
The UK Government was approached for comment.
