Chamber and committees

Scottish Government do not hold this information, which is kept at a local level. However, we have been clear that it is critical that social care support is maintained throughout this difficult period to ensure the safety, dignity and human rights of people who already receive support. We have made clear to Local Authorities that they should act to do what is right to deal with the virus, and not be constrained by funding issues.

We have made it clear to Local Authorities that they should act to do what is right to deal with the virus, and not be constrained by funding issues. An initial £50 million to help the social care sector deal with the financial implications of COVID - 19 was confirmed on 12 May. This funding will allow cash to flow to those parts of the social care sector where additional costs have been incurred, particularly in care home and care at home services. This year our package of investment to support integration and social care will exceed £800 million. The money from the UK Government’s Coronavirus Emergency Response Fund has already been allocated to support a range of important measures. We will continue to press the UK Government for urgent additional funding for the health service, local government and care sector to adequately deal with this crisis.

Throughout this difficult time, it is critical that social care support is maintained to ensure the safety, dignity and human rights of people who already receive that support and along with their carers.

I have already stated in the Scottish Parliament that it is not acceptable that care packages are cut during this period.

In addition to the funding directed towards social care from the 2020-21 budget, we reached agreement with COSLA some weeks ago that we would meet additional costs incurred because of the impact of the pandemic. That agreement was specifically to ensure that both existing and new demand could be met.

Scottish Government and COSLA jointly issued guidance to all authorities on 14 th May which is very clear that while there are some unavoidable reasons that may affect packages, any changes to support should be temporary. Such unavoidable changes include workforce capacity pressures and infection control measures which prevent delivery of support in a group setting.

We have made it clear to Local Authorities that they should act to do what is right to deal with the virus, and not be constrained by funding issues. An initial £50 million to help the social care sector deal with the financial implications of COVID - 19 was confirmed on 12 May. This funding will allow cash to flow to those parts of the social care sector where additional costs have been incurred, particularly in care home and care at home services. This year our package of investment to support integration and social care will exceed £800 million. The money from the UK Government’s Coronavirus Emergency Response Fund has already been allocated to support a range of important measures. We will continue to press the UK Government for urgent additional funding for the health service, local government and care sector to adequately deal with this crisis.

The Scottish Government is continuing to fund access to free period products during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Local authority policy leads for both education and community provision are making reasonable adjustments to ensure products can continue to be accessed by those most in need. In wider community settings products have been redistributed to, for example, places that remain open, including community hubs. For school pupils products were made available to take home in the last few days of school, in some places there is provision of products in food boxes, and products continue to be accessible via those schools that remain open. Some local authorities have put in place home delivery options via Hey Girls and in one area products can be collected for free from a number of local convenience stores.

For college and university students, the Scottish Funding Council has liaised with Hey Girls to offer home delivery kits and redeemable online codes and a number of institutions have taken this up. Those that do not wish to take up this offer have been asked to consider alternative arrangements but students can of course also access free products via their local community hubs.

FareShare continue to provide period products to a significant number of community groups across the country.

This data is not routinely collected on death certificates. However, the Scottish Government are working with National Records of Scotland and the Scottish Learning Disability Observatory to ascertain whether the data from death certificates can be linked to the census data to give an indication of deaths related to COVID for people with learning disabilities and autistic people.

The daily and cumulative number of suspected COVID-19 cases in adult care homes is published on the Scottish Government website:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-daily-data-for-scotland/ .

The following information is also available:

• Number/ proportion of adult care homes which have lodged at least one notification for suspected COVID-19 to the Care Inspectorate.
• Number of adult care homes which have reported more than one case of suspected COVID-19.
• Number/ percentage of adult care homes which have a current outbreak of suspected COVID-19. This is a care home where at least one care home resident has exhibited symptoms during the last 14 days.

Every Wednesday National Records of Scotland (NRS) publish a weekly report on deaths involving coronavirus (COVID-19) in Scotland. This includes a breakdown of deaths by location, including care homes.

The latest update can be found here: https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/covid19stats

The requested information is not collected or held by the Scottish Government.

Information on how many (a) anaesthetists and (b) other NHS staff have been redeployed since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak is not held centrally by ISD or NES.

National Boards have been asked to consider where they can return any clinical staff to clinical roles in territorial boards.

The supply of medicines is a matter reserved to the UK Government.

The Scottish Government works with the Department of Health and Social Care, the UK and Scottish Medicines Supply Response Groups (MSRG), Community Pharmacy Scotland and its members and NHS Boards to minimise the impact of supply issues across Scotland.

In September 2019, the Scottish Government, in collaboration with the MSRG (Scotland), introduced a new process to alert community pharmacists, Health Boards and other healthcare professionals about medicine supply shortages.

We are currently aware of a shortage of atracunium, a muscle relaxant used in anaesthesia: an alternative neuromuscular blocking agent, rocuronium, can be used in line with guidance from the Royal Collage of Anaesthetists (RCoA) and the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine (FICM). The supply of critical care medicines will continue to be closely monitored and managed.

Information on (a) how many and (b) what proportion of anaesthetists in each NHS board have been absent from work due to suspected or confirmed COVID-19 is not centrally held by ISD or NES.

The info on Covid absence is published daily and can be found on the following link:

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

See ‘Trends in daily COVID-19 data’ – Table 6.

R is a measure of the average number of people that would be infected by one individual with COVID-19. If R is 2, then two people would be infected by one person on average. It is calculated through modelling of the path of the virus in Scotland. The epidemiological progression in the Scottish Government model is simulated using the publicly available Imperial College COVID-19 model as used for UK level modelling. This uses data on cases and deaths published on the Scottish Government website: https://www.gov.scot/publications/trends-in-number-of-people-in-hospital-with-confirmed-or-suspected-covid-19/ .