Following misfortunate incidences at hospitals, the Health Secretary, Nicola Sturgeon, has asked the health board to hold an immediate review over freedom of information policy. Besides, a copy containing the detail of the investigation held over the 50 misfortunate incidences in the hospitals.

It has been assured by a spokeswoman of Scottish Government that the order of Nicola Sturgeon would be obeyed by the health board. She said, “NHS boards are responsible for monitoring and acting on adverse events and every board should have an appropriate system in place... We expect all boards to fully implement any actions which are identified as a result, and communicate these to staff where appropriate”.

The main NHS trusts under the investigation are NHS Ayrshire and Arran. It has been informed that on being asked to show all the reports, the NHS Ayrshire and Arran refused to do so. It withheld the relevant information because of which the Health Secretary was forced to take the action.

It has been reported that the NHS trusts in discussion failed to diagnose cancers of a number of patients who later succumbed to death. In other incidences, a patient was trapped in a faulty lift, leg wound of a patient was poorly treated and in two cases, psychiatric patients tried to kill their relatives.

Such kind of critical incidences are recorded by the authorities concerned. Details of such incidences help the authorities to gauge as to what exactly happened wrong and how such incidences could be avoided in the future.

It has come to light that from the past five years, the NHS Ayrshire and Arran have been withholding the information regarding the critical incidences. But now, the health authorities have asked to send the copies of the investigations.