No-one has been held responsible for the deaths of children at a Glasgow hospital that sparked an inquiry, Anas Sarwar has said.

The Scottish Labour leader accused the First Minister, Humza Yousaf, of being “too weak” to act and instead has “empowered” the leadership at the health board who he said were “protecting their own jobs”.

Sarwar challenged Yousaf on the “serious failings” at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital over an infections scandal that left people dead including 11-year-old Milly Main.

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He said the health boards leadership has said that it does not accept many of the findings of an oversight board and that it now does not accept the findings of an independent case-note review that highlighted the infections.

Sarwar said: “We are six years into the scandal and the established facts are being denied by a health board leadership who are prepared to do anything to protect their own jobs.

“Under the SNP, failure is rewarded, incompetence is excused and the Scottish people are left suffering the consequences.”

He told the First Minister Milly Main’s mother said the families' lives were being “made hell”.

Kimberly Darroch, said: “It is unacceptable that the health board leadership is now questioning the findings of the review and gaslighting the families and victims involved.  

“I can’t put into words the pain their attacks have caused the families affected. It is making our lives hell.

“It feels like the government have empowered those that have failed us.”

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Sarwar said the First Minister lifted the health board out of special measures and added “the chair of the health board is still in his job” and “the chief executive has been given an excellence in leadership award”.

He added: “If the First Minister is too weak to stand up for those grieving families fighting for justice, how can the people of Scotland trust him to stand up for them when it really matters?”

The First Minister responded by stating the voters put their trust in the SNP over the health service at elections time and again.

Yousaf added: We will absolutely hold the health board’s leadership to account in relation to the recommendations that the oversight board has made.

"The reason why NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde was de-escalated from special measures was that the majority of the oversight board’s recommendations had been accepted, work was under way and many of the recommendations had been completed. That is why decisions to de-escalate were made.

“We will continue to make sure that, on the rare occasions when things go wrong, we do everything in our power to make sure that there is absolute transparency and that families get the answers that they want. As First Minister, I am more than happy to meet the families that Anas Sarwar mentioned, who have undoubtedly been affected by situations in which that failure has happened.”