The Scottish Government's Response to the Vale of Leven Hospital Inquiry Report

Foreword by the C. diff Justice Group

In the first six months of 2007, our families were in the midst of a nightmare. What we didn't know at the time was it was just the beginning of a seven-year fight for justice. Our families and loved ones went through the suffering and loss of dignity of the hospital-acquired infection known as C. diff.

Many of the patients lost their lives unnecessarily and died in the most difficult of circumstances, and that is something the families will never forget. Our loved ones died in pain and with a loss of dignity that was, and still is, hard to come to terms with.

When the possible extent of the C. diff outbreak became public, the families of victims and survivors came together. We knew from the start that we not only wanted answers to why we lost our loved ones, but also needed to make sure that we did whatever we could to ensure no other family suffered as we had. The C. diff Justice Group was born.

We campaigned for a public inquiry into our loved ones' deaths. Around two years after starting our campaign, we finally had our voices heard at the start of the five-year public inquiry into the outbreak at the Vale of Leven Hospital.

Although at times the pain of reliving those memories was unbearable, we believe the Inquiry did an extremely thorough job and has vindicated the families' fight for justice.

When we read the report, we felt it provided the evidence of everything that had gone wrong during the outbreak and what we had been saying since we first started this campaign.

We fully support all the recommendations Lord MacLean put forward in his report, and have fully taken part in ensuring these recommendations are being taken forward.

Families now sit on both the implementation and reference groups that have been formed to ensure the recommendations are taken forward correctly, and that gives us some assurance that they are being implemented properly.

It is important to the families that we have been able to do that because it allows us to know that lessons are not only being learned, but are also being implemented to ensure they are making a difference.

Finally, for our families, if we have saved just one family from the suffering and pain of losing someone needlessly in the way that we have, if that gives them just one more summer, one more Christmas or one more memory, then we haven't lost our loved ones for nothing.