Chamber and committees

The Government has increased the available resources for social care salaries. I value the work that is undertaken by the sector. I do not think that the issues that Mr Rowley raises about the gender composition of the social care workforces are in any way a legitimate issue to drive those questions. We have taken steps to increase pay in the social care sector. As a society, we face enormous challenges in the labour market about the volume and availability of people across a range of sectors, of which the social care sector is one.

The Government will continue to work with local authorities and health and social care partnerships on that. Mr Rowley suggested a task force to address the issues. I am not convinced about that, because we know what the problem is, we have to get on with delivering and we need our health and social care partnerships to be supported to do that. That is exactly what the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care and the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government are doing to enable that to be the case.

Thank you, convener. I would like to briefly set out the purpose of and background to the Coronavirus (Discretionary Compensation for Self-Isolation) (Scotland) Bill.

At the start of the pandemic, we took steps to suspend the duty on health boards that is set out in the Public Health etc (Scotland) Act 2008 to pay compensation to people that they ask to self-isolate. As it became clear that the coronavirus pandemic would require a very large number of people to self-isolate, the measure was vital to ensure that health boards were not subject to significant financial and administrative resource impacts.

The suspension of the duty is contained in the United Kingdom Coronavirus Act 2020. Many provisions in the 2020 act are due to expire in spring 2022, and the bill takes steps to ensure that the suspension of the duty to pay compensation remains in place. Given the recent increase in cases of omicron, that is vital to ensure that health boards are not subject to additional financial and administrative impacts as they continue to provide key public health and health services.

Members will be aware of the existing support for isolation, which includes the self-isolation support grant. That is a one-off payment to those earning the real living wage or less who are notified to self-isolate. That vital support to those on lower incomes helps them to financially weather a period away from work.

Other forms of practical and social support are available, including the local self-isolation assistance service, which provides help to those who need it with things such as essential medicine and food delivery at a local level, and the coronavirus national assistance helpline, which is available to help with any queries relating to Covid-19.

Scottish Government analysts have estimated the cost of reverting to the 2008 act’s power while we are experiencing high levels of cases to be about £380 million, which is 20 times the budget for the self-isolation support grant. For that reason, and to prevent financial and administrative burdens on health boards as they seek to exit the pandemic, the Scottish Government believes that the bill is a necessary step to ensure that we can continue to provide support and protect health boards as they provide essential care.

The cost estimate was undertaken prior to the recent emergence of omicron and will be revised in line with updated modelling. It is likely that the estimate will increase significantly. At this vital time, it is important that we protect our health boards and ensure that that vital support continues.

I look forward to answering questions from the committee.

Again, that is a difficult question for me to be precise about. We are constantly reviewing the situation, looking at many data streams regarding levels of infection, pressures on our hospitals, the effectiveness of the vaccination programme and so on. Many factors must be borne in mind. At this stage, I would say to people that adhering to the advice that has been given so far about reducing social interaction before and after the Christmas period is the most effective contribution that people can make towards ensuring that we can enjoy and appreciate some time with our families over what we might call the formal Christmas period.

Obviously, the last thing that we want to do is inflict further disruption on people at this time. Sadly, that had to happen last year, and we want to avoid it this year, if at all possible. In any decision making that we undertake, we will be mindful of the plans that people will have made.

The guidance is being formulated as we speak. Given the pace at which we are operating, we are trying to discuss its detail with a variety of interested parties, and I expect it to be available in the course of Friday. In essence, it will provide the information that those obliged to have reference to the guidance will be able to take forward. We need to consult the business community, faith leaders and other relevant organisations, and that work is under way so that we can, to the greatest possible extent, act in a manner that enables activity to continue but which contributes to a reduction in the possibility of the virus circulating.

I will bring in Professor Leitch on part of that question, because we will get into the assessment of clinical risk. I will explain the thinking behind the programme.

This year, we took a decision to vaccinate more people than ever before for flu, and we had a commitment to administer the booster jags for a range of population groups. Our judgment was that the most effective and efficient way of doing that was to combine, as far as possible, the flu and Covid booster vaccination programmes to ensure that we were using resources wisely and calling in people when they could get two doses together. I had my flu and booster jags on Sunday, in a very efficient programme in Blairgowrie town hall.

The programme is designed to enable us to make as much progress as possible, but there will be some people who will get a flu jag slightly later in the year than they would have done under a stand-alone programme. Professor Leitch can set out the clinical issues around that.

We are trying to maximise the protection that is available to individuals and within society by having as efficient a programme as we can. I accept that some individuals might get a flu vaccination slightly later than they would ordinarily have received it.

We are awaiting advice on that point from the JCVI, which has been exploring the issue—

No, convener—I am satisfied with what I have said.

That is nothing new. However, I am taking tests more frequently because of the degree of interaction that I now have in the course of my responsibilities.

That is a very significant and legitimate question. In my answers to Mr Rowley’s completely legitimate questions about expanding the scale of the vaccination programme, I made the point that one of the options could be turning down the dial on elective work and putting more resource into the vaccination programme. If I do that—I do not wish to personalise this, but I will use these distinguished members of Parliament to illustrate my point—Mr Rowley might be more happy, but Mr Whittle will not be. Mr Whittle’s primary concern is the treatment of what I will call non-Covid conditions that are perhaps leading to early mortality because health services are unable to undertake all that we would ordinarily hope they would be able to.

That is why we have to invest in all the precautionary measures possible to avoid the virus circulating. We are not in any shape or form powerless with regard to omicron circulating, because people can come forward for vaccination, which they are doing in substantial numbers, and they can observe the baseline measures on a routine and rudimentary basis in order to put up barriers to circulation.

There are all sorts of steps that we can take. It is incredible to watch what our contact tracers are doing in response to the early cases of omicron. It is jaw dropping to see the degree of intensity with which they are looking at where people have been, whom they have been close to and what is happening around them, to try as much as possible to interrupt the circulation of the virus.

We have to use a variety of devices because, the more we do that, the more activity we will have to try to address the core point that Mr Whittle puts to me.

Yes, the issue has been resolved. I very much regret that some individuals had that experience yesterday. The guidance has changed and it should have been applied in all vaccination centres and scenarios.

In light of what emerged yesterday—I am advised that the issue arose in a limited number of cases—we have reiterated the guidance to all health boards to ensure that all vaccination centres are operating to the new updated guidance, which emerged only at the start of the week.

I regret that some individuals were inconvenienced in that way. The fact that people are so willing to come forward for the booster jag at such an early stage after the change of guidance is an indication of public attitude to participation in the programme, which is welcome. That makes it doubly disappointing that people were inconvenienced in the way that they were.