Chamber and committees

The group was first convened on 26 March 2020 and has met every Monday and Thursday since then. Further information about the group, including notes of the discussions which have taken place, is available here: https://www.gov.scot/groups/scottish-government-covid-19-advisory-group/ .

The Scottish Government set out our approach to contact tracing on 4 May in the Test, Trace Isolate, Support Strategy . We will establish an enhanced COVID-19 contact tracing service in every Board. Recruitment and training of new staff will be managed by existing health protection teams who have high quality skills and experience in delivering contact tracing, and of which some are already undertaking COVID-19 contact tracing work. Recruitment has commenced in a phased approach, to introduce as necessary a national contract tracing team managing routine work and supporting local contact tracing teams. Initial workforce education resources for staff supporting the contact tracing programme have been developed in partnership with Health Boards and made available to all Health Boards before 25th May. All staff who will be recruited to undertaken Contact Tracing activity either at a national level or local level, will use these core materials to help ensure consistency across Health Boards in Scotland. As of 18 May 2020, c 680 staff have been identified locally and over 8000 notes of interest have been received nationally, in addition to those NHS returners who are being considered for deployment.

The COVID-19 data and trend charts for Scotland are published daily and provide a range of information, including the number of care homes notifying cases of COVID-19 and the number of suspected cases of COVID-19 in care homes. These data are available from 11 April 2020 and are updated daily. There are also data on the number of people that have been tested for COVID-19 in Scotland, these are available from 2 March 2020 and provide a cumulative number. There is no breakdown of how many of these tests were for care home staff or residents.

Data are broken down by NHS board for:

• the cumulative number of cases that have tested positive for COVID-19;
• the number of patients in intensive care with confirmed or suspected COVID-19; and
• the number of patients in hospital with confirmed or suspected COVID-19.

The link to the daily data update is:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/trends-in-number-of-people-in-hospital-with-confirmed-or-suspected-covid-19/

The Scottish Government has made no decision on NHS laundry services and will not make a decision until we have addressed the current Covid-19 situation.

Mental health legislation in Scotland provides for rigorous safeguards in respect of individuals’ human rights. Compulsory treatment is only allowed under very strict circumstances and certain criteria must be met before an order or certificate can be granted. In addition, treatment under mental health legislation is governed by a range of safeguards, for example medication which is to be given for more than two months, must be agreed to by a Designated Medical Practitioner — an experienced psychiatrist appointed by the Mental Welfare Commission. The Mental Health (Care and Treatment)(Scotland) Act 2003 also requires that orders and certificates should be kept under review and revoked or varied as appropriate, to support the principles of least restriction and maximum benefit. In addition, the independent Mental Health Tribunal grants and reviews orders for compulsory treatment.

The Scottish Government is commitment to creating a modern, inclusive Scotland which protects, respects and realises internationally recognised human rights.

As you are aware the independent review of the Mental Health Act which is chaired by John Scott QC is underway. The review aims to improve the rights and protections of people with a mental disorder and remove barriers to those caring for their health and welfare. It is due to publish an interim report by the end of May 2020.

The Scottish Government is in regular written and phone contact with Scottish Care, who are the representative body of most care home providers in Scotland, on a range of matters relating to Covid-19 and I regularly speak to their CEO, Dr Donald Macaskill.

As the member knows our waiting times improvement plan included the delivery of six elective diagnostic and treatment centres. The first of these will open at the Golden Jubilee National Hospital.

The member will appreciate that in scaling up and repositioning the NHS to cope with the challenge of COVID-19 this work has been slowed down. However as we develop our plans to "restart" the NHS, these centres will be an important part of our consideration. This restart work is underway, clinically led and with the engagement of the Royal Colleges, Board and Unions and mindful of other inter-dependencies such as construction work and transport.

We hope to make the intention and plans for the initial phase public in the near future.

18 May 2020 (Holding Reply Issued 13 May 2020)

I recognise how important the death in service benefit is to NHS staff and that is why it has been agreed with the principal health service unions, including the BMA, RCN and Unison, that all staff affected by COVID-19 as a result of providing frontline services will have access to the death in service benefits available under the terms of the NHS pension scheme, should the worst happen, including provision of a lump sum and survivor’s benefits. This applies to permanent and fixed-term staff. I can advise that NHS Bank and NHS Locum staff are also included. The death in service benefit ensures parity between colleagues and will provide reassurance for staff in these unprecedented times.

I have subsequently sent a letter on 24 April 2020, advising the Health and Sport Committee that my officials are working at pace with NHS Employers and our trade union partners to finalise the scheme's terms and conditions; we aim to publish a Statement of Scheme Particulars by 1 May 2020, at which time I will share the details with the committee.

Daily statistics published by the Scottish Government have always included the number of Covid-19 deaths (where COVID-19 has been confirmed from a lab positive test result) in all settings of death, including in hospitals, care homes, homes or other settings. This was in contrast to the original daily reporting of deaths in England which applied to hospital settings only.

Scottish Government statistics are published on the Scottish Government website each day at 2pm.

In addition to the daily statistics, the National Records of Scotland (NRS) also publishes a weekly report on the number of deaths where there was a confirmed or suspected case of Covid-19. These include a breakdown of deaths by setting.

We are considering how best to bring all services back on stream, but in doing so we must be very careful that we do not do anything that might compromise the fragile gains that we are making in containing Covid-19.

We recently published ‘COVID-19: A Framework for Decision Making’ which sets out the challenges we face and how we will approach them. However, our priority at this time is to preserve life and reduce harm.

The current restrictions remain in place and we need to stick with them for now, in order to be able to relax things in future. Independent podiatrists who are still practicing should continue to adhere to national Covid-19 guidance and the guidance produced by their professional bodies.