THE Scottish Government have been slammed after an FOI request revealed the Health Secretary failed to attend a police briefing following the cyber attack on NHS Dumfries and Galloway.
A recent FOI revealed Neil Gray MSP attended only one meeting on the subject but left early, missing a Police Scotland briefing about the attack.
And now South Scotland MSP Colin Smyth believes local people can have ‘no confidence’ in Holyrood’s handling of the cyber attack which happened in February.
Mr Smyth this week said: “It is completely impossible to have confidence in Neil Gray’s ability to support the health board if he was not even present for relevant discussions.
“This was the single biggest data leak we have seen in the public sector in Scotland. A health secretary should be attending key meetings that relate to the breach of patient data for its entire duration, yet Neil Gray clearly felt he had to be somewhere more important.
“This issue has dragged on for months and it has taken far too long for it to become clear that the scale of the leak and the number of people affected is significantly higher than was first suggested. There has been a real lack of urgency from the Scottish Government.
“Even though we only now know almost everyone in the region with a health record has been affected by this leak, it remains unclear what has been leaked about each person. You have to question whether enough Scottish Government resources have been focused on this.
“Fortunately, so far the data doesn’t appear to have been used against any individual, but people will be deeply concerned about recent developments and they deserve answers.
“The health secretary and the Scottish Government have been posted missing and it’s not good enough.”
