Health Secretary urged to intervene over Fife vaccine queues 'chaos'

NHS Fife has apologised and admitted that appointments for its clinics had been overbooked, leading to queues outside the vaccine centres.

But Fife MSP Mark Ruskell has called for Ms Freeman to intervene to make sure a similar situation does not happen again.

Mr Ruskell, a member of the Scottish Parliament’s Covid-19 Committee, said: “The scenes witnessed today at several vaccine clinics in Fife are completely unacceptable and must not be repeated anywhere.

"My elderly constituents cannot be expected to stand outside in freezing temperatures tomorrow or any other day, this will have dented public confidence in the vaccine roll-out in Fife.

"The Health Secretary must come before parliament at the earliest opportunity to explain exactly what has happened, and whether it will have any knock-on effect on the roll-out of the vaccine in Fife. Many of my constituents faced disruption earlier this winter with the booking system for the flu jag, the Scottish Government must ensure those mistakes are not repeated again.”

Alan Robertson (73) one of many pensioners left queuing in the cold outside the Randolph Wemyss Memorial Hospital yesterday, ended up rescheduling his appointment.

"I turned up and there were people waiting outside the door,” he said.

"There must have been around 100 people there, shoulder to shoulder. There were more people there than at Bayview on a Saturday afternoon.”

Mr Robertson was told that some of the other pensioners had been waiting as long as two and a half hours for their appointments.

"It was utter chaos,” he added. “How did it end up so disorganised? People were waiting outside in the snow. It was an absolute disaster.

"There was no social distancing. Everyone was huddled together in the corridors.

"They want me to stand outside in the cold for 30 minutes just so I can get into the building and stand shoulder to shoulder with folk?”