Chamber and committees

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-28198 on 27 April 2020.

I am leading work to ensure a range of mental health and wellbeing support is in place for NHS and social care staff, complementing the work being taken forward by NHS Boards and Health and Social Care Partnerships at a local level. The work I am leading will cover the whole health and social care workforce whatever the setting or contractual arrangements.

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 .

As of 3 May 2020 there were 1991 registered enquiries into the [email protected] mailbox.

The Scottish Government recognises that the lack of access to professional pet grooming services has the potential to impact on the welfare of certain breeds of animal, particularly those requiring regular grooming to maintain their wellbeing.

Routine grooming is deemed a non-essential business activity. Where an animal is not at risk of pain or injury, professional groomers should not be providing routine grooming services. 

Where essential professional grooming on welfare grounds is undertaken it must be conducted in line with the rules on physical distancing.  Such tasks essential for the welfare of an animal include the clipping of heavy coats and claws. 

As at the week ending 1 May, there were 77,057 sign-ups to the Ready Scotland website, the breakdown is provided in the following table:-

The working group established under direct Ministerial control has helped to mobilise business support for NHS Scotland and co-ordinate supply chains through a cross-government team including the Scottish Government, Scottish Enterprise, NHS Scotland and the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland.

A broad range of Scottish manufacturing businesses have repurposed and increased production to address shortages of hand sanitiser, personal protective equipment (PPE) and medical devices. This effort is reshoring economic activity to Scotland, building and strengthening Scottish supply chains for the future.

CalaChem in Grangemouth for example have already produced 20,000 litres of hand sanitiser using alcohol supplied by distillers Whyte and Mackay and have accepted an order from NHS Scotland to produce a further 560,000 litres. This order alone more than matches NHS Scotland’s immediate demand for hand sanitiser. Stonehaven manufacturing firm Macphie has started bottling the initial CalaChem product and will deliver the order into the national supply chain.

We are supporting the PPE supply chain through a pipeline of NHS Scotland orders and through investment in capacity. Annan-based PPE manufacturers Alpha Solway are currently producing 20,000 face visors per day for NHS Scotland as part of an order of 1.1 million visors. The business has also invested in new mask-making machinery with capacity to produce 15 million respirator masks per annum.

To address critical global shortages of the key raw material used in the manufacture of respirator masks, the Scottish Government has provided a £3.6 million repayable grant to Forfar-based textiles company Don and Low. This will go towards the purchase, import and installation of a new £4.5 million machine capable of both meeting and exceeding our domestic demand for the fine filter material required in high performance masks.

Don and Low are also supplying an initial order of 1.4 million square metres of fabric for the production of gowns for NHS Scotland. The fabric will be distributed among garment manufacturers in Scotland and England to achieve the fastest possible conversion to the final gowns product.

Berry BPI with factories in Greenock and Dumfries have invested in new machinery to produce aprons and apron-style gowns for the NHS. By early May BPI will be manufacturing around 200,000 special fluid-resistant, long-sleeve apron-style gowns and over six million standard disposable aprons every week.

Scottish engineering businesses are at the vanguard of efforts to manufacture more ventilators to support increased critical care capacity across they UK. Two companies with facilities in Scotland are part of an effort led by Babcock international Group to design and produce more ventilators. As part of this effort Plexus and Raytheon will both be supporting the production of ventilators from their Kelso, Livingston and Glenrothes manufacturing facilities. Plexus and Raytheon have been supported by Scottish Enterprise to facilitate their involvement in vital efforts to increase ventilator capacity for the NHS and Scottish Enterprise remains in contact to provide any operational support they require.

Our excellent Scottish life science businesses are working to support the Test, Trace and Isolate approach and testing supply chain, from manufacture and supply of test kits, testing equipment and reagents and the provision of lab services and technical support.

Where necessary to meet exceptionally high demand resulting from Covid-19 the Scottish Government has also supported NHS Scotland in sourcing PPE, testing materials and equipment from global producers. Three charter flights containing globally-sourced supplies have arrived at Prestwick between 18 April and 4 May 2020. In total, from the three charter flights NHS Scotland has received: 27 million Type IIR face masks, 849 infusion pumps and 120,000 VTM (Virus collection and Transport Medium) testing kits. While these stocks are being distributed to the front-line further flights with more vital supplies are being scheduled.

The national SMS service first started signposting people who are shielding and need support for deliveries of medication to their Local Authorities on 21 April. Collection of data for performance monitoring purposes of this service is underway, but data are not yet available.

Information held nationally on delayed discharges can identify the number of people who were delayed in their discharge from hospital awaiting completion of care arrangements for social support in order to live in their own home and whose delay period ended in death. Information is not available prior to July 2016 due to a change in data definitions and reporting requirements. Figures for calendar years 2017 to 2019 are shown in the following table.

Number of people delayed in their discharge from hospital awaiting completion of care arrangements for social support in order to live in their own home whose delay period ended in death; by NHS Board; Calendar years 2017-2019

No clinical waste has been stored at hospital sites under contingency. No additional hospital storage costs have been incurred.

The international standard for an appropriate pandemic response is to double ICU capacity. NHS Scotland has more than trebled its adult ICU capacity, from a base of 173 beds to a surge capacity of 585. These beds will be brought into use as needs dictate, on a daily basis. Given the scale of the current emergency, we have asked Health Boards to go further by preparing to quadruple the base ICU capacity; bringing the total number of adult beds to over 700.

To deliver that increase, we have ordered ventilators from a range of manufacturers and these are beginning to arrive with more deliveries to arrive over the coming weeks. To bridge any gaps between now and the delivery of new ventilators, Health Boards have been working to repurpose operating theatre anaesthetic machines for use as ventilators. That is not a long-term solution, but it is allowing us to rapidly increase our capacity of intensive care beds.

Local Authorities and NHS Boards receive an update of people on the shielding list in their area weekly. As of 24 April four extracts have been sent to each of these organisations.

GPs receive an update of people on the shielding list in their area approximately weekly. The updates will be received at different points depending on what software GPs use. As of 24 April four extracts have been sent to GPs.