UK COVID-19 Inquiry 19 Nov 2024

Testimony by former Health Secretary for Scotland Jeane Freeman OBE.

Introduction

Ms.Jeane Tennet Freeman was was appointed the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport June 2018 and held this role until May 2021. She mentions in her statement ‘‘I had no involvement with the Scottish Government's response to the pandemic after that point.’’

NB: Ms.Freeman was a leading member of the Communist Party's student wing and in 1979 she became the first woman to chair the National Union of Students Scotland. In 1983 Freeman was a member of the Communist party's Congress Arrangements Committee which oversaw the running of that year's party congress.

Highlights

• Blanket DNACPRs were not ruled out in April 2020 letter.

• No equality impact assessments on those the state deemed most at risk of ‘COVID’ therefore medical discrimination could take place.

• Disrupted healthcare access for millions of Scots (ongoing) due to lockdown caused harms.

Testimony highlights

Ms.Freeman confirms in her statement she and the former First Minister and her advisors decided to lockdown the Scottish population based on COMPUTER MODELLING.

‘‘I took a number of decisions to ensure that the health service in Scotland was ready to deal with the modelled high numbers of people expected to require hospital treatment, including intensive care, in line with the reasonable worst-case scenario. This included, for example, the cancelling of elective and non-urgent healthcare; the pause on cancer screening programmes.’’

-Paragraph 57 of statement

It was also KNOWN the decision to lockdown would cause harm to people’s health and have consequences to the economy.

‘‘Both myself and the former First Minster Ms.Sturgeon and her advisors were VERY CLEAR on the impact on other health issues.

‘‘None of the decsions that we were making were risk-free.’’

‘‘The other harms whether they were NON COVID health or societal or economic were given FULL consideration.’’

Hospital ICU capacity

Accodring to Ms.Freeman ICU capacity within Scottish ICU’s was never overwhelmed by ‘COVID’. An interesting intervention from Lady Hallett who argues the inability to treat NON COVID patients meant the NHS was overwhelmed rather than realising the obvious…it wasn’t and that many more people should have been receiving treatment instead of suffering and DYING at home from treatable conditions.

‘‘I was not made aware that intensive care capacity had been reached in Scotland at any point from March 2020 onwards.’’

‘‘Overwhelmed is not a word i would agree with…and UNDOUBTEDLY NON COVID harm was created.’’

Official ICU stats

The scandal that keeps on giving. Barely over 300 weekly admissions to ICU THROUGHOUT ‘the pandemic’ with 40-50% of beds always remaining unused. Increased capacity for 700 beds was being made available.

‘By June 2020, we had reached a total ICU capacity of 585 (against a 173 baseline) ,as detailed in a report from the Scottish Intensive Care Society Audit Group report on Covid-19, published on 8 July 2020.’’

-Paragraph 118 of statement

‘‘On 1 April 2020, the former First Minister provided an update to the Scottish Parliament, reporting that a doubling of ICU bed capacity had been achieved and that work was underway to quadruple ICU capacity to over 700 beds.’’

-Paragraph 117 of statement

How ‘COVID’ ICU admissions were defined during ‘‘the first wave’’

This surely has to be under any rationale medical fraud?

‘‘The definition of a patient in ICU or HDU with COVID-19 in our previous reports has relied on identifying patients who have a positive PCR test for SARS-CoV-2. This definition changed during the pandemic. For data published on 08 July 2020 and earlier, there was no maximum duration between testing positive and ICU admission, which meant that once a person had tested positive for COVID-19, they would always be counted as having the disease on admission to ICU regardless of the time that has elapsed since their positive test or the reason that they have been admitted to ICU.’’

-source-Public Health Scotland

Lockdown effects on NHS care

Below is just some of the official catastrophic damage lockdown policy not ‘COVID’ wrought upon the health of the Scottish population. Much of which directly attributable to decisions made by Ms.Freeman. All permissable of course under the guise of ‘the pandemic.’

Cardiovascular

‘‘Overall there was a sharp drop in cardiovascular attendances at Accident and Emergency Departments starting in early March 2020. Attendances were around 60% lower compared to the 2018-2019 average. Levels rose again by the end of May, but remain around 30% below the 2018-19 average.’’

Mental health

‘‘A&E attendances for mental health problems fell by 40-50% from early March 2020 and by the beginning of September had still not fully recovered, remaining at around 10% below previous levels.’’

Cancer

In 2020 alone 4,800 fewer patients in Scotland had a diagnosis of cancer.

• Lung cancer -20%

• Breast cancer-15%

• Prostate cancer-17%

DNACPR decisions

On the 10th Arpil 2020 Ms.Freeman approved a letter from the CMO which did NOT rule out the application of BLANKET DNACPR orders. Despite multiple witness testimony at the Scottish COVID-19 inquiry for months Ms.Freeman refers to ‘‘alleged’’ blanket DNACPR notices. She admits this would have likely deterred people from accessing NHS care for fear of being written off upon admission. Again, this has been evidenced at the Scottish COVID inquiry as fact rather than speculation.

‘‘I am not aware of any evidence which shows that the conversations initiated by GPs during the pandemic had an impact on people accessing GP services. However, I think that it is reasonable to assume that some people would have avoided making an appointment with their GP for fear of being deprioritised in relation to ICU care.’’

-Paragraph 225 of statement

‘‘The letter didn’t expressly say that there SHOULDN’T BE blanket use of DNACPRs.’’

-Emma Price counsel to the inquiry

‘Long COVID’

Ms.Freeman stated she did not see a demand for ‘Long COVID’ clinics despite NHS Tayside initially setting up such a service.

‘‘I would have seen than demand (Long COVID) elsewhere and i didn’t.’’

Statement highlights

‘‘Our overarching objective as the Scottish Government was, as far as possible, to protect the Scottish population from the harms of Covid-19 and minimise the loss of life.’’

‘‘‘The Framework for Decision-Making published in April 2020, which provided the following..

-Paragraph 28 of statement

I’m sure many families that suffered during lockdown would find the points highlighted in red insulting.

‘‘ There was considerable understanding within the Scottish Government of the potential wider health, social and economic impacts of non-pharmaceutical interventions ('NPIs') which widened and deepened as the pandemic progressed. From my perspective, in terms of health, I understood the risks that we were trying to manage between the impact of Covid-19 on citizens, particularly those identified as highly vulnerable to this particular virus, with the necessary reduction in standard NHS care that would be required in order to cope with the demands of the pandemic. For example, I had taken the decision to pause cancer screening programmes in the knowledge that this posed a significant risk of cancers being undetected. I was very well aware and conscious of the impact this would have given that the screening programmes exist precisely because the earlier cancer is detected, the greater the likelihood is of recovery. But a continuation of the screening programmes in themselves posed a risk to those staffing them and to those attending for screening in addition to diminishing available test processing capacity and the need to redeploy staff. This was one of the hardest decisions I had to take, and I think exemplifies the core dilemma of the response to the pandemic for all governments in that there was no risk free decision available.’’

-Paragrapg 65 of statement

‘‘In the early stages of the pandemic, we did not carry out formal Equalities Impact Assessments ('EQIAs') due to the emergency nature of the response at that time.’’

-Paragraph 66 of statement

‘‘Responsibility for public reporting of statistical information and data on Scotland's healthcare system sits with PHS. As Covid-19 was a new disease, it was not part of data reporting prior to 2020. However, core data collections and core modelling were put in place quickly at the start of the pandemic to monitor and forecast the spread of the virus. This helped inform both operational responses and policy development and kept the public informed via Ministerial statements, the frequent media briefings and online publications.’’

-Paragraph 81 of statement

‘‘The global shortage of ICU ventilators in March 2020, and the fact that there was no manufacturing base for ICU ventilators in the UK, led the NHS in Scotland to repurpose anaesthetic machines, which had become available due to the suspension of elective surgery, for use in ICU.’’

-Paragraph 122 of statement

‘‘Although the NHS Scotland Estate was at capacity it still managed to handle all Covid-19 patients so, as stated, the Louisa Jordan was never required for treatment of Covid-19 patients.’’

-Paragraph 159 of statement

‘‘The consequences of Covid-19 and the necessary measure to reduce transmission had a significant effect on levels of anxiety and mental health in the general population and specific groups including young people and those with additional vulnerabilities. The resilience of our population in these terms is for me a significant lesson to be learned.’’

-Paragraph 285 of statement ‘lessons learned’

‘‘Throughout the pandemic in our NHS and elsewhere, what had been deemed impossible pre pandemic became possible. For example the use of new technology in GP practices or the devolution of greater decision making to front line staff. It would be regrettable if these and other changes which in fact were improvements to working and delivery, were not sustained and built on.’’

-Paragraph 287 of statement ‘lessons learned’

The Scottish Government wanted the country under longer lockdown.

‘‘For example, in a situation where we in the Scottish Government considered, based on the evidence and advice before us, that a longer or new period of lockdown was needed, the necessary financial support for business and individuals could only come with agreement of the UK government. If they did not share our view that a longer or new period of lockdown conditions was necessary for England, no financial support would be made available to Scotland, thereby effectively curtailing our capacity to act in what we considered to be the best way to protect the population we serve.’’

-Paragraph 43 of statement

Thoughts

You will find an extremely weak article of this testimony by Helen McArdle in The Herald (in links) content to urgently write up this evidence but not so keen with other evidence especially from the Scottish COVID inquiry namely the bombshell 27-28 Jun 2024 Health and Social Care closing statements that no media in the world has covered. Of course, as always with mainstream media articles the provided content is missing many important details noted above.

Thanks for reading.

End

Links:

Full statement- https://covid19.public-inquiry.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/19175801/INQ000493484.pdf

Full video-Youtube-UK Covid 19 Inquiry - Module 3 Hearing - 19 November 2024 AM

https://scotland.shinyapps.io/phs-covid-wider-impact/

https://publichealthscotland.scot/media/12828/2022-04-20_sicsag_report_final.pdf

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/24734442.jeane-freeman-gives-evidence-covid-inquiry-healthcare/

https://www.parliament.scot/-/media/files/committees/covid19-recovery-committee/correspondence/2023/nhs-tayside--long-covid-inquiry.pdf