Chamber and committees

Public Health Scotland identified 105,277 people from central sources before 10 April. As of 24 April, it has identified a further 6,301 people on or since 10 April.

37,838 people were identified from non-central sources before 10 April. As of 24 April a further 9,710 have been identified on or since 10 April. It is not possible to categorise people as being identified specifically by clinicians.

As of 24 April 159,126 people have been written to. People are written to on an ongoing basis as they are identified. 132,379 were written to before 10 April, and as of 24 April a further 26,747 have been written to on or since 10 April.

This process will continue - if people are newly diagnosed, or if clinicians feel it is required, people will continue to be added to the central list to ensure they can be supported to shield.

The local authority telephone numbers for people seeking support with shielding can be found here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/covid-shielding/pages/contacts/

The Scottish Government does not hold information on either the numbers of staff taking calls or the waiting times across local authority areas.

As at 26 April 2020, the number of shielded individuals who signed up for priority online supermarket deliveries by local authority area is presented in the following table.

The letter issued by the Chief Medical Officer to those who are recommended to shield contains important information advising how people in this group should keep themselves safe, what support is available to them, a range of references to sources of further information or help, and information about key issues which are likely to arise. It is essential that those being asked to shield have this information available to them in order to keep themselves safe.

Advice is also available through each local authority’s shielding helpline, or through the new national helpline.

The information contained in the letter is broadly the same as letters issued by the other Chief Medical Officers across the UK in relation to shielding.

There have been two interruptions to the service. On both 11 April and 21 April the SMS service was unable to send outgoing messages for a period of time. However, all inbound messages were received.

In each case people will have experienced a delay between sending their message to register and receiving a response from the SMS service confirming their registration, but no one will have been unable to register as a consequence.

By 24 April 2020, 76,888 people had registered with the SMS shielding service. Of these, 27,000 people registered before 10 April, and 49,888 people registered on or after 10 April.

The SMS shielding service offers information and support to people who have been advised to shield because they are at high risk of severe illness from COVID-19:

• People who sign up to the SMS service can use it to request free weekly boxes of basic groceries, if they don’t have another way of getting food and household items.
• The SMS service asks people if they would like their details to be passed to the supermarkets, so that they can access priority delivery slots.
• The SMS service signposts people to their local authority if they need prescription medications delivered.

All of these services are available to anyone in the shielding group who needs them, including people who do not have access to a mobile phone. The services can all be accessed through each local authority’s shielding helpline, or through the new national helpline.

Many people who are shielding will not require access to these services as they will have existing support networks they can use to access food and medicine.

People who are shielding are encouraged to register for the SMS service so that they can be contacted with further updates as the situation around COVID-19 develops.

The Local Resilience Partnerships (LRPs) bring together a range of strategic local partners and, working with local community groups, provide support to people who are shielding including organising food deliveries, for example for people who do not have mobile phones, as well as assistance with prescription medication deliveries.

Any contact to LRPs in respect of shielding should be made through the relevant Local Authority. The Scottish Government and Local Authorities communicate on shielding on a daily basis.

The Scottish Government takes the health and safety of all our staff very seriously. The guidance published by the Department of Health and Social Care, Health Protection Scotland (HPS), Public Health Wales, Public Health Agency Northern Ireland, Public Health England (PHE) and NHS England on 2 April 2020 is the official and fully comprehensive guidance on the matter of the use of PPE in the context of COVID19.

The guidance includes clarification that - professionals can use their judgement to assess their risk based on what task they are undertaking and where it is taking place, this includes aerosol generating procedures.

The guidance can be found at: https://www.hps.scot.nhs.uk/a-to-z-of-topics/covid-19/#guidelines .

The Scottish Government is working closely with NHS Boards during the pandemic to monitor the impact of Covid-19 on demand and capacity and is responding where required.

On 25th March the Chief Scientist Office also launched the Rapid Research in Covid-19 (RARC-19) Funding Call. This is supported by nearly £5 million of funding from the Scottish Government. As part of this, the Scottish Government is funding projects which will help us understand the mental health impacts of the pandemic on the population, including on vulnerable groups.

We expect people are going to need a variety of supports through the crisis. That is why we are investing £3.8 million on extending telephone and digital mental health support and a further £1 million on rolling out Distress Brief Intervention support across Scotland. We are also working closely with the Boards on the delivery of existing services within the context of the current constraints.

Prior to the Covid-19 crisis, psychology staffing had been steadily increasing with enhanced investment. NHS Education for Scotland is currently delivering the Health and Social Care Covid-19 Accelerated Recruitment Portal, which will enable a speedy deployment and employment of workers across the Health and Social Care workforce as they are required.

The Scottish Government plans to expand the Distress Brief Intervention (DBI) service across the entire country in response to COVID-19. Prior to the COVID pandemic, DBI was already operating as a pilot in rural and urban areas, in the Scottish Borders, Aberdeen, Inverness and North and South Lanarkshire. The Scottish Government is working proactively with the DBI Central team (based at NHS Lanarkshire) and other partners to set in hand the practical arrangements for the expansion to go live over the coming few weeks. The additional commitment to support this is £1,038, 284 in the current financial year.