Why the death of an honest civil servant in Queen Elizabeth University Hospital should haunt the SNP
Andrew Slorance approached every task with determination, good humour and honesty
Early in his government career, Andrew Slorance took a phone call that was to change Scotland. It was March 1996, and the former newspaper reporter, then a press officer, received a query from a journalist about a mass shooting in a Dunblane school.
A friend and colleague remembers how Andrew reassured the journalist that the story was likely a wild rumour, but promised to investigate further. “The colour drained from his face as he spoke to colleagues in the police division in St Andrews House. Things were different from that day on,” he said.
Andrew handled the fallout of the murder of 16 children and their teacher with the same steadfast professionalism he approached every task during his long career as a senior government communications adviser.
Conscientious good humour
In the early 2000s, I spent nearly five years sitting next to him in the Scottish Government press office. Laughing at his terrible jokes. Listening to him proudly recount stories about his children.
We would give each other advice about handling a press query, or a ‘difficult’ minister or senior civil servant. He was definitely more patient than me, and less cynical – a consummate public servant who believed in the power of the press, politicians and public servants to do good by the people of Scotland.
And he approached every task with conscientious good humour, whether it was his self-appointed role as the press office’s fridge monitor, a job that truly tried his patience, or his last role as head of the Resilience Response and Communications Unit.
He was diagnosed with mantle-cell lymphoma (blood cancer) in late 2015 – a potential death sentence for the father-of-five, but with his customary attention to detail and optimistic approach to life, he started a blog to record his progress.
On November 25, 2015, he wrote: “I didn’t doubt it, but my work have been fantastic in helping me deal with my diagnosis and looking ahead at my treatment. The SG [Scottish Government] family is a strong one when it comes to looking after their own.”
READ MORE: Widow of senior Scottish Government official feels ‘let down’ by Nicola Sturgeon over his death
A potentially fatal infection
On December 5, 2020, Andrew Slorance died alone in Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital (QEUH). His death at only 49 was officially attributed to Covid pneumonia, caught while he was waiting in isolation for a bone-marrow transplant which he and his wife Louise were hopeful would prolong his life.
But after requesting his medical notes, Louise discovered that he had also been treated for a fungus called aspergillus, a potentially fatal infection that had not been previously disclosed to her.
Andrew’s death is now being investigated by the police along with those of five other patients, including three children, who died at the so-called ‘super’ hospital after contracting serious infections they acquired while being treated for other illnesses. The Greater Glasgow and Clyde health board has finally admitted that it is probable that there was a "causal connection" between infections suffered by patients and "the hospital environment".
‘Political pressure was also being felt’
And this week, papers from the public inquiry set up in 2019 to examine concerns about the construction and early operation of the hospital appear to confirm Louise Slorance’s worst fears. A report written by engineer Jim Leiper revealed that political pressure was a determining factor in the decision to open the hospital before it was safe for patients.
Leiper, who had been commissioned to investigate why major concerns about the hospital's water and ventilation systems had been largely ignored, wrote: “Political pressure was also being felt and no consideration was given to delaying the opening of the hospital despite the issues being faced with completion and operation.”
The landmark hospital, directly funded by the Scottish Government, began admitting patients in April 2015, in the middle of a general election campaign which saw the SNP win a historic landslide and Scottish Labour collapse to just one MP.
Labour’s leader Anas Sarwar has campaigned determinedly on this issue for years, even when few were listening. His anger on Thursday when he confronted John Swinney with Leiper’s report was palpable: “That decision to open the hospital early has resulted in a decade of lies, deceit and cover-up, bullying and gaslighting of staff, families being lied to and denied the truth.”
An honest, hard-working man
It also likely resulted in the death of Andrew Slorance, a man who, in the words of Swinney, handled his work with “honesty”. In a letter to Louise in the days following Andrew’s death, Swinney praised his hard work and effective communications. “His honesty shone through in everything he did,” he wrote.
How true. Whether it was advising ministers about the best way to handle public information about Covid or the Dunblane massacre, or even chiding his colleagues about the unsanitary state of their shared fridge, Andrew approached every task with determination, good humour and yes, honesty.
He understood more than any of us the important role of a government in protecting its people from harm. Indeed, in his role as head of resilience communications, he embodied it. His many friends relied on his regular Covid updates and weather warnings, always confident that what he told them was true.
Swinney tried to brush away Leiper’s claim of political interference, denying it was a “revelation” by saying his report had already been provided to the inquiry. As Andrew knew only too well, politicians will do all they can to deflect difficult questions. The First Minister is a master of the art. But even he cannot hide from the truth.
The police investigation carries on, the public inquiry led by Lord Brodie is due to report its findings later this year, and Sarwar will continue to harry the SNP administration. But the truth seems self-evident.
Andrew Slorance, that most honest of public servants, died because the government that he was so proud to serve failed to look after him and the other victims of this most terrible of scandals. In the coming weeks, John Swinney might want to ponder what that says about him and his party.
Comments
Want to join the conversation? Please or to comment on this article.