Did construction workers at queen Elizabeth university hospital deliberately block drainpipes

1. The allegation presented at the inquiry: who said what

At the inquiry, former NHS Greater Glasgow estates manager Ian Powrie told investigators that construction workers had engaged in “deliberate sabotage,” including blocking drains with debris after contracts were terminated, and that sewage had flowed into ground-floor adult and children’s areas as a result of those blockages ^[1]. The Daily Mail reported his account in stark terms, summarising the claim that workers left building debris in underground drains and that shower wet rooms were not draining properly, which Powrie linked to a heavy burden of defects for his small estates team ^[1].

2. What technical and official reports actually document

Independent and official documents cited to the inquiry and published by health authorities describe a different set of technical findings: drain samples showed biofilm, adhesive occlusions and pooling around spigots and sink pipework, and investigations emphasise contamination risks from early filling of the water system and inadequate commissioning rather than documented acts of sabotage ^{[2] [6]}. The NHS case file and government reports record biofilm and occlusions from adhesive and pooling between sinks and pipework, and experts told the inquiry that filling water systems too early in the construction timeline can allow contamination to develop ^{[2] [3] [6]}.

3. Systemic problems that create the conditions for failure

Multiple published reviews and reporting place the QEUH problems in the context of design, build and commissioning failings: the campus has been scrutinised for installation defects in pipework and ventilation, an early fill of the water system more than a year before opening, and a complex handover process that left the estates team “firefighting” a high volume of contract defects ^{[5] [3] [1]}. NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde conceded to the inquiry that the hospital’s water system probably caused infections, further underscoring that systemic commissioning and maintenance issues were central to the crisis ^{[7] [8]}.

4. Standards of proof and the limits of current reporting

The allegation of deliberate blocking rests, in public reporting, on testimony reported by outlets such as the Daily Mail; that testimony is part of the inquiry record but has not, in the sources provided, been corroborated by forensic evidence publicly disclosed that uniquely identifies intentional human sabotage as the root cause rather than poor installation, adhesive occlusions, or biofilm growth tied to early filling and commissioning lapses ^{[1] [2] [6]}. Official technical analyses emphasise material occlusion and biofilm as observable phenomena, but those findings do not inherently reveal motive or deliberate human interference unless specifically linked by forensic chain-of-evidence in inquiry documents not cited here ^{[2] [6]}.

5. Balanced conclusion: allegation versus documented causes

The deliberate-sabotage claim is on the public record as a contested testimony at the Scottish Hospitals Inquiry, but the verifiable, published evidence in government reports and technical analyses foregrounds construction, commissioning and maintenance failings—biofilm formation, adhesive occlusions, and premature filling of systems—as the documented mechanisms by which contamination and drainage failures occurred; therefore, while sabotage is an allegation that inquiry investigators must and will test, the available reporting does not establish it as proven fact and places greater weight on systemic defects as the proximate cause of the hospital’s water and drainage problems ^{[1] [2] [3] [6] [5]}.