THE SCOTTISH Authorities was blasted final evening for failing to ship a cupboard minister to a last-ditch Covid pandemic drill – simply weeks earlier than the primary lockdown.
New particulars reveal neither Nicola Sturgeon nor any of her high workforce attended the secretive Train Nimbus, chaired by UK Authorities’s then Well being Secretary, Matt Hancock, in February 2020.
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The little-known summit rehearsed ministerial-level decision-making throughout a simulated Covid epidemic – underneath a strikingly related situation to the horrific actuality that adopted weeks later.
However Ms Sturgeon’s authorities despatched junior minister Joe FitzPatrick – the then Minister for Public Well being, Sport and Wellbeing – slightly than then Well being Secretary Jeane Freeman, or another cupboard chief.
Sources say Mr FitzPatrick – compelled out of his job in December 2020 over Scotland’s file medicine deaths – ended up taking part in no important position in pandemic decision-making. Calls had been dominated by Ms Sturgeon, Ms Freeman, ex Deputy First Minister John Swinney, and a small group of advisers.
Final evening, Scottish Conservative MSP and shadow well being secretary Dr Sandesh Gulhane stated: “The SNP authorities’s failure to ship their senior well being minister to such an vital train was complacent and inexplicable.
“Bear in mind, this was only a month earlier than the primary lockdown when it was already – inevitably and tragically – clear that Covid was heading to UK shores.
“As Well being Secretary, Jeane Freeman – not her hapless junior Joe FitzPatrick – ought to have been current at this occasion.”
Train Nimbus was a secretive train overseen by Public Well being England on February 12, 2020. Ms Sturgeon had been in London the day before today and on February 12 she was concerned in a Twitter spat, accusing Boris Johnson of “taking part in politics with the largest problem of our time”.
Weeks earlier, Ms Sturgeon had advised Holyrood that the Covid scenario was “evolving and we are going to monitor it extraordinarily intently”.
Little data is public about Nimbus, although particulars are anticipated to be pored over as a part of the UK and Scottish Covid inquiries.
In 2021, ex No10 adviser Dominic Cummings tweeted temporary particulars of Nimbus, saying it rehearsed a “hypothetical future” with an assumed Covid peak in Might 2020, a 16-week wave, and hospitals full by mid April.
A UK Authorities freedom of knowledge response in 2022 gave temporary particulars of the train, saying it was “to check ministerial-level choice making for the UK’s pandemic preparedness and response throughout the context of the novel coronavirus outbreak”.
It added: “Throughout emergency preparedness workouts equivalent to Train Nimbus, taking part businesses want the liberty to check plans and determine areas for enchancment via engagement with reasonable situations, together with being examined to factors of failure at occasions.”
A Scottish Authorities freedom of knowledge response confirmed: “No members of the Scottish Authorities’s cupboard, at the moment, participated in Train Nimbus.”
Requested why Ms Freeman or one other cupboard minister couldn’t have attended, a spokesman stated: “The choice on which minister attended this train was a collective choice primarily based on portfolio duties. It was due to this fact acceptable Mr FitzPatrick represented the Scottish Authorities given his position as Public Well being Minister at the moment.”
The spokesman stated Dr Catherine Calderwood additionally attended because the Scottish Authorities’s Chief Medical Officer on the time.
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