Chamber and committees

All delayed discharge patients will have required some form of care after discharge, either in their own home, care home or other community setting. Using a Home First Discharge to Assess approach many partnerships are discharging people for further rehabilitation and on-going assessment at home, or in a more homely setting. This approach provides a much better outcome for the individual since the assessment is undertaken in a more realistic living setting than a hospital ward.

Delayed discharge management information is now being published regularly on the Scottish Government website at https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-daily-data-for-scotland/ .

Since 2006, a National Care Home Contract has been in place, which defines the terms of local authority (publicly) funded placements into private or voluntary sector care homes across Scotland.

The information requested in not available broken down by NHS Board or Integration Joint Board. However, the National Care Home Census, published by Public Health Scotland includes details of the average gross weekly charge for long stay residents in care Homes for older people in Scotland, with and without Nursing Care, by source of funding. This information can be found at:

https://beta.isdscotland.org/find-publications-and-data/health-and-social-care/social-and-community-care/care-home-census-for-adults-in-scotland/ .

Furthermore, agreement on the National Care Home contract for 2020-21 was reached between local government and Scottish Care - this has seen a 3.5% increase in the rate.

From 6 April 2020 the 2020-21 standard rates for publicly funded service users are:

? £714.90 a week for nursing care

? £614.07 a week for residential care

Information on the reason for delays is available in the monthly delayed discharge census, published by Public Health Scotland. The April census records 138 (22%)delays awaiting completion of care arrangements to go home, and 127 (21%) delays awaiting a care home place. There were also 148 (34%) patients delayed who were awaiting the appointment of a Guardian by the courts, and 60 delays (10%) with highly complex needs. There were no delays awaiting funding.

In comparison, in January 598 (36%) patients were delayed awaiting completion of care arrangements, 347 (21%) delays were awaiting a care home place, and 336 (20%) were delayed awaiting a social care assessment. There were also 210 (13%) patients delayed awaiting the appointment of a Guardian, and 78 (10%)delays with highly complex needs. There were 30 delays awaiting funding.

Sample collection kits at the start of the outbreak were stocked at a Health Board Level and National Services Scotland do not have a daily total of these going back to 1 February 2020. Since 1 February 2020, there have been no reported shortages with Health Boards not having supply of sample collection kits. National Services Scotland have ordered over 2.5 million swabs to support testing for Covid-19 and have currently established a buffer stock of over 450,000 kits.

Please find summarised the number of kits received and issued since 17 April 2020 to 19 June 2020. We do not have daily figures for before the 17 April 2020.

Total number of tests in the National Distribution Centre as of 19 June 2020 - 551,000

Number of sample kits pushed out by National Distribution Centre as of 19 June 2020- 628,250

Total Number of tests as of 16 June 2020 – 180,000

NHS Scotland VTM swab kit stock position of both the National Distribution Centre and Health Boards (the number for Health Boards is calculated via the National Distribution Centre pushed quantity minus total tests performed) as of 18 June 2020 - 999,250

It is for the Parliament rather than the Government to determine what activities require to be registered under the terms of the Lobbying (Scotland) Act 2016. Any such enquiries should be directed to the Lobbying Register Team in the Parliament.

The information requested is publicly available from National Records of Scotland in their weekly statistics publication which includes figures for the number of deaths associated with COVID-19 that occurred in a care home.

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

The most recent NRS figures available, published on 10th June, report that as at 7 June, a total of 1,861 deaths were registered in Scotland, where COVID-19 was mentioned of the death certificate and occurred in a care home.

Weekly figures for the number of deaths associated with COVID-19 that occurred in a care homes in 2020 can be found on the NRS website in the weekly statistics publication supplementary tables in Table 1: 'Weekly provisional figures on deaths registered where coronavirus (COVID-19) was mentioned on the death certificate in Scotland' .

Decisions undertaken on how best to respond to COVID-19 are continually assessed against the evidence and as this evolves, so too does our response.

The Scottish Government has and will continue to receive expert scientific advice, including on testing from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE). Minutes from SAGE meetings were made publicly available on 29 th May 2020:

https://www.gov.uk/search/transparency-and-freedom-of-information-releases?organisations%5B%5D=scientific-advisory-group-for-emergencies&parent=scientific-advisory-group-for-emergencies

The Scottish Government received expert scientific advice, including on testing for COVID-19 from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) which met twice in January. Minutes from SAGE meetings were made publicly available on 29th May 2020:

https://www.gov.uk/search/transparency-and-freedom-of-information-releases?organisations%5B%5D=scientific-advisory-group-for-emergencies&parent=scientific-advisory-group-for-emergencies .

Prior to the outbreak of COVID-19, the Scottish Government received expert health protection and public health advice from a range of scientific experts including the Chief Medical Officer, Public Health Scotland, the Scottish Health Protection Network, NERVTAG and the Advisory Committee of Dangerous Pathogens.

We will continue to be guided the best scientific advice and expertise in relation to all aspects of health protection and public health.

Testing capacity fluctuates on a daily basis, any comparisons on testing capacity between countries is a single point in time assessment based on information available at that time.

The Scottish Government was clear that if a point of sustained community transmission for COVID-19 was reached, we would rely less on contact tracing and focus instead on providing the best care to those who had developed the disease, delay and reduce the spread and protect those who are most vulnerable.

Utilisation of contact tracing for Covid-19 came to an end when the Scottish Government announced it was moving to the delay phase on Thursday 12 March, at which point contact tracing was stopped.

As a result, those who displayed symptoms of a new continuous cough and/or a high temperature, regardless of their travel history or contact with confirmed cases, were asked to self-isolate.

On 4 May 2020, the First Minister set out our approach to Test Trace Isolate and Support.

The first set of data from week one of the coronavirus (COVID-19) Test and Protect system has been published.

The data, which will be published weekly, shows:

• the number of positive index cases from 28 May to 7 June
• the number of index cases where contact tracing has been completed
• the number of contact traces

Since Test and Protect was launched, 681 cases have tested positive with 741 contacts traced.

The data may be found here: https://beta.isdscotland.org/find-publications-and-data/population-health/covid-19/covid-19-statistical-report/