Chamber and committees

We have established a single point of contact for businesses, third sector or voluntary organisations who wish to offer support at [email protected] .

Advice on how individuals can help their community through volunteering can be found at www.readyscotland.org/coronavirus/helping-your-neighbours-friends-and-family .

The Minister for Trade, Investment and Innovation Ivan McKee is leading a Working Group tasked with supporting the supply of manufactured products such as ventilators, personal protection equipment (PPE), hand sanitiser and testing kits to NHS Scotland. Alongside the Scottish Government, Scottish Enterprise and the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland are coordinating efforts to mobilise the Scottish business community to support the NHS with the sourcing of vital supplies.

Mr McKee wrote to enterprise agency account managed companies, our Global Scots network and business organisations across Scotland asking for assistance in supplying and/or manufacturing key items for the NHS. Scottish companies have risen to the challenge and NHS Scotland is now working with a range of Scottish textiles producers and fabricators to meet exceptionally high demand for PPE.

The Scottish Government is committed to supporting communities to respond to food insecurity in a manner which places dignity at its heart.

That is why we are taking a ‘cash-first’ approach to food insecurity, which prioritises direct financial transfers where possible and desirable. This is being enabled by almost doubling our Scottish Welfare Fund, adding an additional £45 million to the £35.5 million already committed. We have also made £30 million available and issued guidance to local authorities through our Food Fund, which seeks to promote dignified access to food.

For those at the highest clinical risk from COVID-19, we are offering enhanced support, including working with supermarkets to offer priority delivery slots from w/c 13 April. This enables individuals without other support to access this essential service.

These are some of the ways through which we are supporting dignified access to food, founded on principles of human rights. We will continue to be guided by the recommendations of the 2015 Short Life Working Group on Food Poverty (The Dignity Report) throughout our response to this pandemic.

The annual gas safety regulations are reserved to the UK Government and the Scottish Government cannot change them.

Whilst the Scottish Government recognises the importance of the annual safety checks, during the current health emergency, the Scottish Government would like to see the postponement of the annual gas safety check to ensure the spread of the Covid-19 virus is reduced- unless work is essential for the safety and security of occupiers, or for homes to be fit for human habitation.

I have written to the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Health and Safety Executive with my views and urged them to take a pragmatic and proportionate approach by providing a temporary extension of the statutory obligations for gas safety in light of the current pandemic and restrictions that are in place across the country.

Our priorities for testing are directing testing capacity to save lives and protect the vulnerable; ensuring that critical staff can return to work as soon as possible; and monitoring and reporting of the spread and prevalence of the virus in the population and the impact of public health measures.

Guidance has been published for the NHS to support use of the testing capacity in laboratories, in so far as it is not needed for essential care, in order to enable healthcare staff to be back at work when that is safe.

We are expanding this programme to cover critical frontline NHS and social care staff, and workers in other critical areas.

However, the tests we have available are effective at identifying people who have COVID-19, but only when they are symptomatic. They cannot reliably detect infection prior to the onset of symptoms. This is why we are not testing key workers who do not have symptoms.

NHS territorial boards will put in place appropriate local arrangements for testing of NHS and social care staff who are symptomatic.

Monitoring will continue through our laboratories and will be targeted on the following groups:

• admissions to hospital
• admissions to intensive care
• community testing dependent on circumstances, for example specific situations such as a nursing home outbreak
• critical frontline NHS staff following a risk assessment

Plans are well advance to expand our NHS testing capacity progressively up to 3,500 tests daily by the end of April.

Surveillance testing will also provide real-time information on how the virus is spreading in Scotland, which will inform NHS planning and allow resources to be directed where they are needed most.

The supply of medicines remains the reserved responsibility of the UK Government. The Scottish Government continue to work closely with UK Government colleagues and the pharmaceutical industry in order to ensure that patients in Scotland can access the medicines they need.

There is a growing body of evidence for the efficacy of interferon beta-1a in treating COVID-19, however there is not currently a licensed medicine. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and the Heath Research Authority have expedited approvals to a company to conduct a trial of an inhaled formulation of interferon beta-1a in COVID-19 patients to potentially assist with the global outbreak of the virus. The Scottish Government remain ready to assist with this work in any way possible.

Public health advice is regularly updated and can be found at: Coronavirus (COVID-19) on NHS Inform and at Public Health Scotland: https://www.hps.scot.nhs.uk/a-to-z-of-topics/covid-19/

As of 23 March 2020 three new measures are in place to protect those most at risk:

1. Requiring people to stay at home, except for very limited purposes

2. Closing non-essential shops and community spaces

3. Stopping all gatherings of more than two people in public

It is absolutely vital that people stay at home in order to protect those most at risk and the NHS.

The Scottish Government will also proactively be providing guidance to groups who require to increase social distancing, such as those adults with underlying health conditions.

There are some further clinical conditions which put people at even higher risk of severe illness from COVID-19 due to complex health conditions, such as people undergoing active chemotherapy or radiotherapy, who have received an organ transplant or are on immuno-suppression medication. Where people are in this category, NHS Scotland will directly contact them with advice on more stringent measures that should be taken to keep themselves and others safe.

The advice on the above websites is being constantly reviewed based on the developing evidence base to ensure information relevant to specific vulnerable groups is included and up to date.

The Scottish Government is actively investigating the successful approaches taken by governments and clinicians across the world as recommended by WHO. There are currently no plans to request direct assistance from the Cuban Government to support and assist NHS Scotland. We will consider all offers of assistance on a case by case basis, whilst being mindful that health care systems throughout the world will be experiencing immense strain in the coming months.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-27988 on 27 March 2020. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx