Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government have not met with any NHS board or local authority to discuss the number of COVID-19 related deaths in their areas. However, will soon meet with the Chief Executive of Inverclyde to discuss issues related to COVID-19.

I have also met virtually with NHS Chairs to discuss COVID-19, and the Minister for Public Health, Sport and Wellbeing meets virtually with NHS Chairs in their Regional Groupings every week.

The Scottish Government’s Director General Health and Social Care and Chief Executive of NHS Scotland holds a number of weekly teleconferences with NHS Boards regarding COVID-19.

Officials across the Scottish Government have regular discussions with NHS Boards on many aspects of COVID-19, including planning, public health and care homes. Health Protection Scotland communicates with NHS Directors of Public Health and local health protection teams as part of their day to day work in monitoring the spread of the virus.

The Scottish Government is supporting the care home sector across Scotland and my officials are in regular contact with Health and Social Care Partnerships (HSCPs) in Scotland, including Inverclyde HSCP, to support them to manage and deal with the impacts of the COVID outbreak. The Care Inspectorate alongside other partners is also in regular contact with care homes and is providing them with support including infection control.

Directors of Public Health have been tasked with providing enhanced clinical leadership and have contacted every care home in Scotland to assess how they are managing infection prevention and control, staffing, training, physical distancing and testing. This is alongside enhanced clinical support for residents from primary care teams including GPs and community nurses.

From 18 May, new arrangements for ensuring appropriate clinical and professional oversight for care homes have been put in place. As part of this multi-disciplinary teams comprising key clinical leads from NHS Boards and Local Authorities including Chief Social Work Officers are providing oversight of local care homes. This approach builds on recent actions and existing local arrangements in helping to keep residents safe.

To supplement this clinical oversight, the Scottish Government has established a Care Home Rapid Action Group. This is a national group set up to monitor developments in the care home sector, reacting swiftly to developing issues and coordinating our wider package of support to the sector. A clinical and professional advisory group has also been established to provide advice and guidance on preventing and managing COVID-19 in care homes.

We recognise that this is a difficult time for parents and expectant parents.

On 21 May, the First Minister set out the steps and phases by which the Scottish Government will aim to ease current lockdown measures. As detailed in the route map published, our actions will be gradual and incremental and will be matched with careful monitoring of the virus.

Phase 2 of the route map will permit many previously closed retail units to reopen in line with guidance for the retail sector published on 26 May.

We are committed to ensuring a safe and sustainable restart of the economy.

This is not data held by the Scottish Government. Public Health Scotland does break down national data per local authority, available here: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/
index.html#/658feae0ab1d432f9fdb53aa082e4130 .

Public Health Scotland also provide a weekly report that offers Covid-19 cases categorised by age, available here: https://beta.isdscotland.org/find-publications-and-data/
population-health/covid-19/covid-19-statistical-report/ .

The Scottish Government continues to focus on three objectives for testing: to support those seriously ill, to support essential workers to get back to work, and for the purposes of surveillance.

Testing capacity in Scotland has been significantly increased in response to this outbreak.

On 14 May a formal request has been made to the West of Scotland Regional Resilience Partnership for deployment of a Mobile Testing Unit to the Inverclyde area and work has started on the identification of a suitable site.

As we plan our work for Test, Trace and Isolate we are giving active consideration to the deployment of testing to areas of social deprivation, including increasing local access to having a test taken.

Myself and the Chief Constable have regular discussions on a range of issues. Additionally, Police Scotland provides daily updates on the Covid-19 response and impact which have included reports about enforcement activity in respect of the emergency regulations in Inverclyde, flagging levels of traffic and pedestrians within the Renfrewshire and Inverclyde Division area. While operational decisions are a matter for the Chief Constable, the Scottish Government is willing to engage in any multi-party discussions about the local response as appropriate.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde is working in partnership with the Inverclyde Health and Social Care Partnership in responding to COVID-19, including ongoing monitoring of its impact.

Local authorities are responsible for enforcement of the emergency regulations in respect of retail workplaces. In doing so, they are working closely with Police Scotland to enforce the emergency regulations effectively.

NHS National Services Scotland is working with Public Health Scotland to assess whether antibody tests can be used to determine whether individuals have been exposed to the virus. We do not yet know whether the presence of antibodies indicates that someone is immune to future infection, and if so, for how long that immunity would persist.

Antibody testing is in the early stages of development and the information currently being collected as part of randomised antibody testing from routinely collected blood samples will inform how best to prioritise the testing.

The Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) analyses and categorises the nearly 7,000 'data zones' of Scotland by deprivation.

https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-index-multiple-deprivation-2020/pages/5/

The 2020 SIMD report shows that Inverclyde has a high proportion of data zones which are part of the 40% most deprived data zones in Scotland. A total of 59% of Inverclyde's data zones are from the cohort of the 40% most deprived data zones in Scotland.

Statistics published this week by National Records of Scotland (NRS) show that people living in the most deprived areas of Scotland were 2.3 times more likely to die with COVID-19 than those living in the least deprived areas.

https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/covid19stats

Analysis of the NRS data shows that (year to date up to 10 May), Inverclyde local authority had the highest rate of death from COVID-19 across all local authorities (at 132 deaths per 100,000). There will be other factors alongside deprivation that will contribute to this, for example, Inverclyde has a higher proportion of people who are pensionable age (21%) compared to the proportion for Scotland (19%).

Further work is being done by analytical partners across the Scottish Government, NRS, Public Health Scotland and the NHS to consider how we can better understand the impact of COVID-19 on the people of Scotland.

We are working with Public Health Scotland to better understand the link between Covid-19 cases and poverty and deprivation, and how we can best support all vulnerable groups at this time.

PHS has undertaken a range of analyses to look at the impact of deprivation on COVID and non-COVID excess mortality, which it will be publishing as part of its weekly Covid 19 statistical report, in the coming weeks. The current report (13 May) is available here:

https://beta.isdscotland.org/find-publications-and-data/population-health/covid-19/covid-19-statistical-report/13-may-2020/

National Records of Scotland have also recently published additional information on COVID-19 deaths and deprivation, available here:

https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/covid19stats

As advised by the First Minister on 6 May, following the outbreak of Coronavirus in Scotland the Scottish Government allocated Inverclyde Council £749,000 in hardship funding and £500,000 from the food fund. An additional £447,000 has been allocated in respect of the Scottish Welfare Fund, bringing total funding available to date to £1.3 million.

£125 million of funding has also been committed to support third sector and community efforts across Scotland, and Inverclyde is benefitting from this.

From our Supporting Communities Fund we have awarded £40,000 to Inverclyde Community Development Trust and £140,000 to Oak Tree Housing Association, helping them respond to community needs.

Assessment of applications to the first round of the Wellbeing Fund is almost complete. At this stage, Inverclyde is benefiting from 22 projects approved for support and almost £230,000 of funding. Applications for the second round of funding are being invited by noon on Friday 22nd of May.