SCOTTISH Tory health spokesman Miles Briggs has admitted that the UK government’s response to the coronavirus crisis has been a “shambles.”

The MSP was on Radio Scotland’s John Beattie show to talk about a BBC Scotland Disclosure documentary due to be broadcast tonight. 

The programme has discovered that Scotland's care watchdog was warned 179 times about staff shortages at care homes amid the coronavirus crisis. 

But during the interview, the host put it to Briggs that the UK had the second worst cumulative Covid death rate per head of population. 

Beattie said: “Belgium, 860 per million, the  UK, 688 per million, Spain, 608 per million, Italy, 581, Peru 575 per million, Sweden, 560 per million. 

“So the UK is second place in the world league of deaths per million, and I think you would agree that is a shambles isn't it?"

“Yes,” Briggs replied. “I don't think we're in a good place and then when we look forward now to what could be a second peak I think we need to make sure we're working extra hard now to prepare our care home sector in Scotland for what could be that second peak and second wave.

"Especially care homes which have not seen any infections, something which I think the Scottish Government isn't doing enough about at the moment”.

Beattie interrupted to point out to Briggs that he’d been reading out the UK wide figures “and you just said yes you agree that's a shambles. So that was the Conservative government. The UK numbers are the second worst in the world league of deaths per million.”

“Yep,” Briggs replied. “And I think when you look at... across the UK, this has not been managed well, and here in Scotland, I have raised these concerns with the Scottish Government and when we're looking at tonight's [BBC Disclosure] programme with regards to the care home sector, the fact that we have seen more deaths in our care homes in Scotland than any other part of the UK I think it really shows where things have gone wrong and something we need to all be working to make sure it doesn't happen again if we are going to see a second wave, potentially.”

According to the latest figures from the National Records of Scotland, between March 16 and July 19 there were 2,365 (54%) excess deaths in Scotland's care homes.

Covid-19 was the underlying cause in 1,873 (79%) of these excess deaths.

Freedom of Information requests by the BBC revealed that 30 red warnings had been lodged with the Scottish Care commission indicating an insufficient number of staff to properly meet residents' needs.

Louise McKechnie spoke to Disclosure about the death of her grandmother, Bridget Snakenburg, a resident at Whitehills care home in East Kilbride, South Lanarkshire, who contracted Covid-19 and had a stroke.

The programme said that at the height of the pandemic, 39 staff members at the home were off work, and McKechnie believes the absence rate affected her grandmother's care.

 McKechnie told Disclosure she found her grandmother soiled and wet, in a dirty room, with an open bag of used PPE in her bathroom.

"That's how bad it was," she said.

"It was meant to be discarded right away, to prevent any more infection getting about.

"She'd been in her bed for a long time, and her room hadn't been touched for a long time. The debris had built up. I've never seen a room like that. There weren't enough staff to care for their needs."

McKechnie added: "She should not have been left in the first place to die like that. Nobody should be left like that."

A spokesman for Whitehills said: 'We have apologised to Mrs Snakenburg's family for failing to quickly remove used PPE from her room during the Covid crisis.

"Our infection control procedures have since been fully reviewed and endorsed by the Care Inspectorate, which has praised our high standards of hygiene."

A South Lanarkshire Council investigation found "no significant issues that would pose a risk to care home residents".

The Scottish Government said in a statement: "This is the biggest public health crisis we have faced in our lifetimes and the impact on care homes around the world has been profound.

"It is right and proper that decisions taken during this process face scrutiny in the fullness of time but we are committed to protecting life and protecting people from this virus, and all our efforts are going towards doing everything we can to mitigate the impact of Covid-19 in Scotland."