Calendar An icon of a desk calendar. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Email An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Google An icon of the Google "G" mark. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Logout An icon representing logout. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Tick An icon of a tick mark. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Quote Mark A opening quote mark. Quote Mark A closing quote mark. Arrow An icon of an arrow. Folder An icon of a paper folder. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Caret An icon of a caret arrow. Clock An icon of a clock face. Close An icon of the an X shape. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Ellipsis An icon of 3 horizontal dots. Envelope An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Home An icon of a house. Instagram An icon of the Instagram logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Menu An icon of 3 horizontal lines. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Rating An icon of a star. Tag An icon of a tag. Twitter An icon of the Twitter logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Information An icon of an information logo. Plus A mathematical 'plus' symbol. Duration An icon indicating Time. Success Tick An icon of a green tick. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Facebook Messenger An icon of the facebook messenger app logo. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Facebook Messenger An icon of the Twitter app logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. WhatsApp Messenger An icon of the Whatsapp messenger app logo. Email An icon of an mail envelope. Copy link A decentered black square over a white square.

Health Secretary Jeane Freeman reveals data suggesting 894 hospital staff have been infected by coronavirus

Jeane Freeman suggested 894 hospital workers had been infected.
Jeane Freeman suggested 894 hospital workers had been infected.

Around 900 hospital staff have so far been infected by the coronavirus, Health Secretary Jeane Freeman has admitted for the first time.

Ms Freeman produced data suggesting 894 hospital workers had been struck by the disease or were suspected to have the virus.

The figure raised more fears about the risk of acquiring the infection in hospitals following last week’s revelation that around 900 patients on non-Covid wards had the virus.

At Holyrood Ms Freeman confirmed 901 hospital patients on non-Covid wards had been hit by the virus – 870 were confirmed cases and the remainder were suspected. Of those, 218 have died.

Addressing MSPs, Ms Freeman declined to say whether any of the 894 workers had been killed by the disease.

The Health Secretary revealed the figures during a furious row at Holyrood over how the Scottish Government has treated data on hospital infection.

Last week Ms Freeman said there had been 125 “incidents” of coronavirus on non-Covid wards between March 18 and June 3, a figure that was widely interpreted as meaning 125 patients.

Later, however, it emerged the 125 incidents had involved 908 patients (a figure that was revised downwards to 901). Of those patients, 218 had died.

Ms Freeman emphasised that the data was “unvalidated” at this stage and was based on reports from health boards. She said it was not a definitive account because of the virus’s 14-day incubation time.

In the Scottish Parliament, Tory health spokesman Miles Briggs suggested Ms Freeman should apologise to families for the “misleading picture” that had emerged around the spread of coronavirus in hospital wards.

He also called for more accurate figures to be published.

If Mr Briggs thinks for one minute that I do not spend just about every minute of my day thinking about the impact of the pandemic, he is very much mistaken.”

Jeane Freeman, Health Secretary

Ms Freeman said she had been “attempting to be helpful” by publishing “unvalidated data”, but suggested that she would not do so in the the future.

She said she apologised to everyone who has lost a loved one during the pandemic and said everyone should do that every day.

“If Mr Briggs thinks for one minute that I do not spend just about every minute of my day thinking about the impact of the pandemic, he is very much mistaken.

“What I will continue to do is publish validated data from now on, because… it is clear these are suspected transmissions, suspected cases, suspected deaths linked to them and the validated data will be published, I hope, by the end of this month. Although all of that is clear, you have chosen to take unvalidated data and pretend it is validated. That is inexcusable.”

Concern over hospital infection of hip patients

Mr Briggs replied by saying that Ms Freeman had admitted at the weekend that not enough hospital staff were being tested. Surgeons had warned that one fifth of patients treated for broken hips in March and April had gone on to get the virus while in hospital, Mr Briggs said.

Tory health spokesman Miles Briggs.

The Conservative MSP claimed the Scottish Government’s failure to test staff had led to this situation.

Ms Freeman said the data was an estimation and it was only when the data was validated that it would be known how many of those cases, staff infections and deaths were because of hospital acquired Covid-19.

Later Mr Briggs said: “As each day goes past it is a fight to get details out of ministers and yet again here’s Jeane Freeman declaring a figure with staff who’ve potentially been infected with Covid-19. How can we hold them to account if she’s not saying whether or not that’s an accurate figure? And how many of those have died? When she started talking about incidents very soon it became cases and deaths. So for all her screaming and shouting we are struggling to get facts out of the government. It is a drip, drip of issues.”