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Kimberly Darroch<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\nThe Scottish Hospitals Inquiry is to hold its final session just days after a health board admitted infections of some child cancer patients were probably linked to a hospital water system.<\/p>\n NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC) had previously denied bacteria in the water at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital (QEUH) campus was to blame.<\/p>\n The investigation was prompted by concern about patient safety following a series of infections and several deaths including that of 10-year-old Milly Main.<\/p>\n The inquiry, which has been looking at the planning, design, construction and maintenance of hospitals, will hear four days of final oral submissions before publishing a report later this year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The first day of the final session will start with counsel for the inquiry, followed on Tuesday afternoon by the Greater Glasgow health board. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n The change of position by NHSGGC emerged at the weekend in a document submitted<\/a> ahead of the final inquiry session.<\/p>\n Having reflected on the expert evidence, it said there was “on the balance of probabilities” a causal connection between a high rate of bloodstream infections among child patients and the hospital environment, particularly the water system.<\/p>\n It said infection rates fell after remedial work was carried out in 2018, including changes to the water system.<\/p>\n During earlier evidence sessions, senior officials had maintained the infections were complex with multiple possible sources. <\/p>\n Families of children who died following infections have welcomed the admission about the water system, but said it should have come far sooner. <\/p>\n Kimberly Darroch, mother of 10-year-old Milly Main, who suffered septic shock after an intravenous line became infected in 2017, said: “As a mother, I’ve spent six years fighting for answers that should have been given at the very beginning”.<\/a><\/p>\n Milly, who was being treated for leukaemia, was in remission at the time of her death.<\/p>\n John Cuddihy, whose daughter Molly died aged 23 last August, seven years after she was infected said it was “overdue recognition” of problems with the water system<\/a> that families had been warning about for years. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n The Glasgow hospital campus which includes the QEUH and the Royal Hospital for Children opened to patients in 2015, after being built at a cost of \u00a3840m. <\/p>\n But within a few years a number of patient deaths and infections led to concerns about the water and ventilation systems. <\/p>\n Former Health Secretary Jeane Freeman ordered public inquiry in 2019, with its remit also including problems at Edinburgh’s Royal Hospital for Children and Young People (RHCYP)<\/p>\n The opening of the Edinburgh site had been delayed at the last minute after safety concerns about its ventilation system.<\/p>\n The public inquiry’s interim report on the RHCYP has already been issued, saying a spreadsheet error by the health board <\/a>led to the system being wrongly specified. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![](\"https:\/\/static.files.bbci.co.uk\/bbcdotcom\/web\/20260113-125315-2e65791d43-web-2.37.1-4\/grey-placeholder.png\")
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