Chamber and committees

Since the response set out to question S5W-32315, the Scottish Government has made available additional funding of £112 million to support social care winter preparedness. This takes the level of additional financial support to £262 million for social care to address the financial implications of Covid-19, including provision of support for care homes and additional care home places. Further work is ongoing to review in more detail the ongoing financial implications across the sector and to ensure that the necessary support continues to be provided.

In terms of funding in the longer term, the Scottish Government is working to bring forward the Scottish Budget for 2021-22 at the earliest opportunity. This will include detail of our ongoing support across health and social care services.

Whilst recent news from Pfizer is very welcome, we do not yet have a date for the availability of a Covid-19 vaccine for use in Scotland.

The UK Vaccines Taskforce is procuring COVID-19 vaccines on a 4 nations basis and we expect that any doses that become available to the UK will be deployed on an equitable basis. We will prioritise to protect those considered to be most at risk, in line with the Joint Committee on Vaccinations and Immunisations (JCVI) advice available. ‎

In Scotland we already deliver nearly two million doses of vaccine routinely every year so we have a comprehensive delivery infrastructure in place. We have been developing a national plan to vaccinate the over 18 population in phases that align with the JCVI advice. That national plan will be delivered with local NHS Boards.

I refer the member to question S5O-04709 answered in Parliament on 4 November 2020. The answer to this oral Parliamentary Questions can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/report.aspx?r=12916&i=116731

The following table provides the weekly figure for those people who have been advised to self-isolate by the Protect Scotland App. Please note that this does not include those advised by T&P staff to self-isolate as close contacts of index cases

In addition the table also provides a total number of downloads of the App since it was launched on 9 September 2020.

This information is not available. The app does not store personal data anywhere and is not made visible by the app to anyone, including the Scottish Government, not even NHS Scotland. Only completely anonymous data is stored in the app users mobile phone, and is only stored in a public registry if the app User decides to share his or her anonymous data. For more information, see https://protect.scot/how-we-use-your-data

Details of the evidence that informed the development of Protect Scotland can be found at https://protect.scot/transparency . We continue to monitor the effectiveness of the app, in conjunction with Public Health Scotland, with the app functioning as intended. In addition, we are working closely with app project teams from other nations to share learning and to enable our app to work in other countries. This includes consideration of effectiveness measures, and the approach required around evaluation.

To date the Drug Deaths Taskforce (DDTF) has allocated funding to a number of organisations, information on this can be found here - https://drugdeathstaskforce.scot/about-the-taskforce/funding/ .

This includes £1 million which was allocated through a call for research proposals to contribute to the evidence base on interventions to reduce drug-related deaths and overdose, the experience of people who are most at risk and the services which support them. In addition, a further £3 million was allocated to Scotland’s Alcohol and Drug Partnerships to allow them to address gaps in delivering the six evidence-based strategies for reducing drug related deaths set out by the DDTF.

Further work is ongoing through the Innovation and National Developments Funding Programme (a funding programme set up by the DDTF and administered on its behalf by the Corra Foundation) to allocate £5 million in 2020/21 to projects which would allow for testing of innovative or immediate responses to reduce drug related deaths. More information will be added to the DDTF website on this as allocations are made to successful applicants.

Further finding has also been allocated through the DDTF to the Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS) and to Police Scotland, both of which are progressing plans around naloxone. SAS are rolling out a national programme of naloxone distribution following non-fatal overdoses, while Police Scotland are developing a pilot around police carriage of naloxone. More information on both of these projects will be published in the next month.

Public Health Scotland have also received funding for specific posts which have been allocated to support the work of the DDTF and its sub-groups (specifically the Public Health Surveillance group, the Medication Assisted Treatment group and the Multiple Complex Needs group).

Following the announcement of the national lockdown in Scotland in March 2020 all dental care in high street settings ceased, with treatment transferring to within the Urgent Dental Care Centres in each NHS Board area for the most urgent cases. Since that time we have implemented a phased return of NHS dental services to ensure that appropriate protections are in place for patients, practitioners and public health. It is the case that all dentists, whether they carry out NHS work or work privately, are subject to the same requirements to control the spread of coronavirus. The Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Restrictions and Requirements) (Scotland) Regulations 2020 require all healthcare providers to take all reasonable measures to ensure safe practice in the controlled environment in which they are currently operating.

The return of the full range of NHS dental treatments from 01 November is being safely delivered through the provision of PPE to NHS dental contractors and is supported by the clinical evidence and guidance. This will ensure that NHS dental patients in Scotland will have access to NHS treatment in the first instance. However, this is not a return to pre-COVID levels of patient volumes and when seeking an appointment patients should expect to be prioritised within the dental practice on their oral health needs.

On completion the Drug and Alcohol Intervention Service (DAISy) tool will have taken three years and six months to be developed The business case for the DAISy was approved by the Scottish Government and Information Services Division (now Public Health Scotland) in May 2016. The DAISy tool will be completed and implemented from 1 st December 2020.

The tool will collect a range of data on people who access treatment and recovery services, including demographic data, trends in relation to drug and alcohol use as well as service performance and individual outcomes. This will enable local areas to better understand the needs of people who access their services as well as the impact these services and improve responses accordingly.

Information on DAISy is available on the Public Health Scotland website https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Drugs-and-Alcohol-Misuse/Drug-Alcohol-Information-System/

The Drug Deaths Taskforce (DDTF) published a report of its first years activity on 31 July (a copy can be accessed here - https://drugdeathstaskforce.scot/news-information/publications/reports/scottish-drug-deaths-taskforce-one-year-report/ ). This summarises it’s work to date and provides information on the specific areas it has focussed on.

Reducing drug related deaths and drug related harm is a priority of this government, however, we know that this is a long term objective and that actions taken now will take time to impact on the numbers of deaths. However, the DDTF identified six evidence based strategies to reduce levels of drug related deaths and this is where it has focussed its energies in its first year. These include such things as the targeted distribution of naloxone, optimising the use of medication-assisted treatment and the need for an immediate response pathway for non-fatal overdose. More information on these 6 strategies can be found here - https://drugdeathstaskforce.scot/our-work/ .

The DDTF is continuing to take action on these six strategies and is providing financial support to Scotland’s Alcohol and Drug Partnerships to do the same, as well as funding a range of innovative projects which will also have these strategies at their core (more information available here - https://drugdeathstaskforce.scot/about-the-taskforce/funding/ ).