Green targets ‘prioritised over patient safety’ at super-hospital

The drive to hit green targets was prioritised over patient safety when the beleaguered Queen Elizabeth University Hospital (QEUH) was built in Glasgow, a key expert has warned.

Andrew Poplett, an engineer specialising in healthcare ventilation who has conducted audits of the building, said the air cooling system installed in most patient rooms, known as “chilled beams”, was good at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but did not meet healthcare standards for circulating air.

Engineers who worked on the building have also told a public inquiry, which is considering fatal infections among patients, that the drive to hit a low carbon emission target was “paramount” from the start.

Under the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009, there was a fixed emissions reduction target for 2015 — the year the hospital opened — a goal the SNP government under the first minister Nicola Sturgeon later announced they had met. In previous years, milestones had been missed. 

The comments throw light on a key aspect of the £842 million hospital, which was opened by Queen Elizabeth amid much fanfare, but went on to encounter multiple problems, including infection outbreaks.

Seven patient deaths are being investigated by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. In 2021, a review found 84 children had been infected with rare bacteria while undergoing treatment on site. Kimberly Darroch has argued for years that her daughter, Milly Main, died from an infection she caught at the hospital while recovering from leukaemia in 2017.

Poplett said the “chilled beams” were installed to ventilate rooms at the QEUH. This ceiling-based system uses cold water to reduce air temperature, a little like radiators use hot water to warm rooms. They change the air, depending on room size, around two to four times per hour, compared with the level recommended for healthcare facilities of six.

He told The Times: “The NHS is a government organisation committed to achieve an awful lot of different priorities, one being net-zero carbon. If you want to move towards net-zero carbon and energy efficient buildings, chilled beams are useful.

“However, the protocol of the required ventilation rates from a clinical perspective is diametrically opposed to net-zero carbon. You cannot have both.

“It appeared that the environmental consideration to make the hospital as energy efficient and as green as possible took priority over the clinical requirement for high change air rates.”

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Source: The Times, 11 May 2026