Five hospital patients were discharged to a Skye care home weeks before a coronavirus outbreak swept through the premises and killed 10 residents.
Health chiefs have confirmed that the patients were sent to Home Farm Care Home in Portree in the early days of the pandemic reaching the UK in March, before routine testing was in place for people arriving at such facilities.
In April, 10 people died at the home and it emerged that 30 residents and 29 staff had tested positive for Covid-19.
Rhoda Grant, MSP for the Highlands and Islands, said she learned from NHS Highland that the transfer happened soon after the facility had sanctions lifted for failings which had prevented new admissions.
She said: “I am concerned that a care home that had previously been closed to new admissions had this status changed in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“At a time when more checks and balances should have been put in place to protect vulnerable people, it would appear these had been reduced and people were discharged, untested, to this care home.”
The politician was told the transfer happened following a risk assessment which found the care home’s staffing levels had improved to an adequate standard.
Health bosses explained they were satisfied that the problem had been significantly addressed before the hospital patients were transferred there.
But they said that as soon as there was a suspected case of Covid-19 in Home Farm, the suspension of transfers was reinstated and that remains in place.
Mrs Grant was also told the transfers took place in March and an updated policy on testing transfers only came out in late April.
At the end of May, Health Secretary Jeane Freeman pledged to review Scotland’s care home sector after it emerged that police were investigating three deaths at the home.
NHS Highland has since stepped in to play a greater role in running the centre, which is owned by HC-One.
In the aftermath of the deaths, Social Care and Social Work Improvement Scotland applied to Inverness Sheriff Court to cancel HC-One’s licence to run the home.
But a sheriff granted bosses a reprieve, and they will return to the court this week for their fate to be decided.
HC-One has since “recognised that improvements were needed at Home Farm”.