Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government does not directly provide COVID-19 testing for these cohorts of people. This is a matter for each Secure Service (4 of which are independent and 1 local authority-run) and the relevant local Health and Social Care Partnership.

We value the support provided by Scotland’s unpaid carers. They are dealing with pressures that are already great, and will be experiencing added pressure at this time.

Through the Coronavirus (Scotland) Bill 2, we propose to make an extra payment of £230.10 to Carer’s Allowance recipients in Scotland this June, on top of Carer’s Allowance Supplement.

The proposed Coronavirus Carer’s Allowance Supplement payment would provide much needed extra support to some of Scotland’s lowest income carers with the most intensive caring roles. If the provisions are passed, this would be an investment of £19.2 million to support around 83,000 carers with the additional costs of caring during the pandemic, helping protect their health and wellbeing.

We are also committed to ensuring that the coronavirus outbreak does not prevent unpaid carers from receiving the financial assistance they are entitled to and have made emergency changes to the Carer's Allowance regulations to protect access to this support.

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

Through the £42 million Detect Cancer Early programme, the Scottish Government aims to increase the proportion of cancers that are detected at the earliest stages and includes increasing awareness of the symptoms of ovarian Cancer.

Our social marketing strategy and the latest ‘Survivors’ campaign aims to reduce fear of all cancer, which we know remains a key barrier to people presenting early and encourage those with any unusual or persistent changes to their body to visit their GP practice. The Scottish Government has had social media activity for ovarian cancer month including linking to case studies and highlighting the symptoms.

From Monday 27 April, the local personal protective equipment (PPE) Hubs for the registered social care sector started to receive enhanced supplies and support so that they can expand their supplies to unpaid carers and others.

The Scottish Government has published advice for unpaid carers who visit or live with a friend or family member to provide help with personal care such as washing or dressing. The advice details the situations in which unpaid carers may require PPE:

www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-advice-for-unpaid-carers-providing-personal-care .

We are working with NHS National Services for Scotland, local authorities and carer centres across Scotland, to ensure unpaid carers who require PPE to undertake their caring role safely, can access it easily if their normal supply routes are not available.

Carers should contact their local carers centre to find out about arrangements for accessing supplies in their area. If their local carers centre is unavailable, carers can call the Social Care PPE Support Centre on 0300 303 3020 for advice on who to speak to.

We are also working with the national carer organisations to ensure carers have access to the right information on PPE.

We have engaged with mental health leads at each of the NHS Boards and they have provided the following information. There are twelve new mental health assessment centres, which have been established in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. All centres but two became operational between the middle of March and early April 2020. The target operating date for the final two is 30 April 2020. All centres are in significant population centres. All operate seven days per week and all but three operate 24 hours a day. All are staffed with current clinical mental health staff, with bank staff supplementing in a few cases. Boards in more rural areas are monitoring demand and putting in place appropriate measures to minimise mental health presentations in emergency departments, where possible.

As Lord Advocate, I remain constitutionally responsible for the investigation of sudden, unexpected and unexplained deaths in Scotland throughout the current COVID-19 Pandemic. With one adjustment, the requirement to report sudden, unexpected and unexplained deaths to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) remains unchanged at this time; and such deaths continue to be reported to COPFS.

That adjustment is, as I advised Parliament on 26 March, set out in a joint letter which was issued on 24 March 2020 from the Chief Medical Officer, COPFS, Police Scotland and the Registrar General to professionals in Scotland on the processes to be followed for providing a Medical Certificate of Cause of Death (MCCD, or Form 11) during the COVID-19 Pandemic. This letter informed medical professionals that COVID-19 or presumed COVID-19 deaths do not require to be reported to COPFS, unless there is some other substantive reason for reporting the death. This approach reflects that taken in relation to previous significant outbreaks of infectious disease and reduces the demands being placed on medical professionals at this time.

If there is some other substantive reason for reporting the death of a person with COVID-19 or presumed COVID-19 disease to COPFS, then it continues to require to be reported to COPFS. Equally, other sudden, unexpected and unexplained deaths require to be reported in the usual way. The level of investigation in each case will depend on the circumstances, and may include testing for COVID-19 and post mortem examination as appropriate.

The numbers of sudden, unexpected and unexplained deaths being reported to COPFS during the COVID-19 pandemic is, at present, similar to the numbers being reported in previous months. COPFS officials are monitoring the situations closely.

The Scottish Government has spoken with Health Boards to understand the impact of COVID-19 and how people can access care and support for chronic pain. Like most NHS services, specialist pain clinics have been postponed where the multi-disciplinary specialist workforce has been re-deployed to provide critical care. Where possible alternatives to face-to-face consultations are being offered, these include telephone or Near Me video appointments with clinical psychologists and specialist physiotherapists in non-pharmacological strategies. There are also a number of third sector organisations with expertise in specific conditions that can provide telephone or online support for pain management. We have published an information leaflet to signpost people to resources available at https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-tailored-advice-for-those-who-live-with-specific-medical-conditions/ .

In terms of decisions about altering lockdown restrictions that will in turn inform wider decisions such as re-establishing outpatient clinics, all four UK governments recently agreed to extend the current lockdown rules for at least a further three weeks. Therefore while resources continue to be focused on the immediate care of those affected by COVID-19, all activities associated with the Waiting Times Improvement Plan have been paused.

At such a time when the lockdown rules are amended, and Health Boards review decisions about the availability and design of services, we will support Health Boards to improve waiting times. The provision and type of services offered, however, may be different depending on the clinical evidence available on the risks to people of receiving certain procedures if they have a high risk of severe illness from COVID-19. Clinicians will need to discuss this individually with people to take these risks into account when agreeing ongoing treatment plans.

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.

This increase in ICU bed capacity includes increased staffing delivered through internal redeployment supported by education and training which is being locally provided to meet the needs of each Board. The Chief Nursing Officer issued guidance to all Boards to support the deployment of Nursing, AHP, Pharmacy and other staff in Critical Care.