I READ with utter disbelief the report published by Public Health Scotland (PHS) into the discharge of hospital patients with Covid-19 – 78 in total apparently ("Pressure on Sturgeon over Covid chaos in care homes", The Herald, October 29) The report, in my view, is a complete whitewash and is written in a way to absolve the Health Secretary and Scottish Government of any responsibility. The remit and findings are completely flawed and do not stand even the most basic scrutiny.

My reasoning for this verdict is based on personal experience. PHS looked specifically at hospital patients with Covid-19 who were discharged to care homes. This is only a partial picture. What of the non-Covid patients in hospitals who were discharged to homes where Covid-19 was present? How many of them contacted the virus after arriving at a contaminated care home? How many died?

My father, an 87-year-old advanced dementia sufferer was admitted to the Western General Hospital in Edinburgh during the pandemic. He was tested for the virus on admission and was found to be negative. After a three-week period, during part of which he was detained under the Mental Health Act, we were told he was being discharged to a care home where there were several patients (five initially) with the virus. Despite our protestations my father was taken to the care home. Part of his dementia involves severe anxiety and aggression exacerbated by a fear of closed spaces. Despite this he was taken to the care home where he would not stay in his room and roamed the communal areas at will along with other patients, some of whom were infected.

Our position is that social work at the hospital were under a clear instruction to remove as many patients to care homes irrespective of the risk. They took no heed of our concerns. This instruction was clearly from the Scottish Government.

PHS will maintain that they followed the terms of reference given to it by the Scottish Government. The question for the Health Secretary must be: why were cases like my father's not looked into? In my view it is as bad to discharge a Covid patient to an uninfected care home as it is to send an uninfected patient from hospital to an infected care home. The whole fiasco and subsequent cover-up beggars belief. I should say that I have no criticism of the care home whatsoever. My father should never have gone there and as we predicted five months ago he is now in a psychiatric hospital under a compulsory treatment order. That, as they say, is another story.

James Coupland, Edinburgh EH4.

I CONTINUE to be astounded during these abnormal times at the lack of pragmatism in many aspects of decisions being made. This morning my mother, aged 89, received her letter to attend Cumbernauld Town Hall at 6pm for a flu vaccination. Whilst my mother is mobile, she is frail and her eyesight, particularly in the dark, is not good. She leaves the house infrequently and only when a family member can drive her.

Fortunately we have requested that a district nurse visit my mother in her home to give the flu vaccination to avoid any risk to her falling. With that particular age group being advised to stay home, not to take public transport, who thinks up this ludicrous arrangement to expect them to then go out in the dark and put themselves at risk from falling? Many of that age group are already anxious enough – why can we not cater for their needs and consider the fact that beyond 4.30pm during a Scottish November it is both dark and cold? We hear so much that in Scotland we are a caring community, so could those in public health display some empathy for our elderly?

Lesley Brown, Cumbernauld.