Chamber and committees

Questions and answers

Parliamentary questions can be asked by any MSP to the Scottish Government or the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. The questions provide a means for MSPs to get factual and statistical information.

Written questions must be answered within 10 working days (20 working days during recess)
Other questions such as Topical, Portfolio, General and First Minister's Question Times are taken in the Chamber

Urgent Questions aren't included in the Question and Answers search. There is a SPICe fact sheet listing Urgent and emergency questions.

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Question reference: S5W-33839

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 04 December 2020
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 16 March 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many staff will be required in future phases of the COVID-19 vaccination programme.

This information is outlined in the published 'COVID-19 Vaccine Deployment Plan 2021’.

Coronavirus (COVID-19): vaccine deployment plan 2021 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Availability of vaccine supply is a key factor in determining the size of the vaccination workforce deployed at any given time and we are in ongoing dialogue with Health Boards regarding workforce requirements as the programme progresses.

Question reference: S5W-33834

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 04 December 2020
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 16 March 2021

To ask the Scottish Government on what basis it will allocate vaccines to each NHS board.

Question reference: S5W-33825

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 04 December 2020
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 16 March 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether there will be outsourcing of any aspect of the COVID-19 vaccination programme and, if so, what specific areas will be outsourced.

Given the scale of the COVID-19 Vaccination programmes and the unprecedented demands put on health services two organisations, KPMG and Cap Gemini, had been contracted to provide non-healthcare related support.

KPMG had been contracted to provide administrative support to the planning and delivery of a Covid-19 vaccination programme. KPMG identified areas of challenge and best practices that need to be resolved or built upon the delivery of the vaccine programme. The group was contracted between May 2020 to January 2021.

The second area was around workforce planning model was outsourced to Cap Gemini the delivery of COVID-19 vaccinations. The Cap Gemini contract built on the work undertaken on seasonal flu modelling to ensure that we had a detailed understanding of national and board level workforce requirements for delivery. We used this modelling in tandem with Health Boards’ own COVID-19 plans to provide assurance that we have sufficient staff capacity across NHS Scotland. The contract lasted for 3 weeks which started on 19 October 2020.

Question reference: S5W-33836

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 04 December 2020
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 16 March 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to roll out COVID-19 vaccinations to the wider population once they have been provided to the nine priority groups recommended by the Joint Committee on Vaccines and Immunisation.

Once we have offered vaccination to initial priority groups, we will continue to follow the JCVI advice by inviting adults under 50 who have not yet received the vaccine in age cohorts, as follows:

All those aged 40-49 years
All those aged 30-39 years
All those aged 18-29 year.

This is supported by evidence that the risk of hospitalisation and critical care admission with COVID-19 increases with age. Those at highest risk of hospitalisation outside of cohorts 1-9 are those aged 40-49 years.

Question reference: S5W-35529

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 25 February 2021
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 16 March 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what guidance it has produced regarding offering hospital patients aged (a) 60 to 69, (b) 70 to 79 and (c) 80 or over a COVID-19 vaccination prior to discharge, and under what circumstances it (i) must and (ii) must not be offered.

We follow a general approach for vaccinating hospital patients who are prioritised for vaccine as per the Joint Committee on Vaccinations and Immunisations (JCVI) advice.

One of the first things we recommended and undertook when vaccination started in December was to vaccinate those elderly people in ‘longer-stay’ hospital settings - i.e. those who were clinically stable and therefore appropriate to be vaccinated.

It’s important to note that vaccinating people as soon as they enter hospital will not immediately prevent COVID-19 infection or disease as we all know, as it takes time for an immune response to develop to the vaccine (2-3 weeks).

The recommendation for patients admitted to hospital for non-COVID illness, is not to give a vaccine until the patient recovers from their acute illness.

This is a standard recommendation in the Green Book for all vaccines and applied across all UK countries.

The Chief Medical Officer advises that patients should be only vaccinated once they have recovered, so any side effects are not confused with symptoms of the disease they were admitted to hospital for.

Question reference: S5W-35732

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 04 March 2021
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 12 March 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what consideration it has given to offering the COVID-19 vaccine to students who will be 17 years old when they start university in September 2021.

Question reference: S5W-33830

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 04 December 2020
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 11 March 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to introduce a COVID-19 vaccine hotline, and when any such hotline will be available to the public.

Question reference: S5W-34527

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 12 January 2021
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 11 March 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will publish on a daily basis the number of health and social care staff who have received their (a) first and (b) second dose of COVID-19 vaccine.

Question reference: S5W-34525

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 12 January 2021
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 11 March 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will publish on a daily basis its stock level of each COVID-19 vaccine.

Vaccines are procured by the UK Vaccines Taskforce on a 4 Nations basis.

Supply information is commercially sensitive, and in line with arrangements across the 4 Nations we now publish information about supply once per week on the Scottish Government website here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-daily-data-for-scotland/

This information shows total cumulative supply allocated to and delivered into Scotland each week.

Question reference: S5W-34526

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 12 January 2021
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 11 March 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will publish on a daily basis the number of (a) care home and (b) care at home residents who have received their (i) first and (ii) second dose of COVID-19 vaccine.

Number of vaccines administered is included as part of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) data and this includes the numbers of care homes residents that have been vaccinated. The publication also includes information on numbers vaccinated in the priority groups and weekly information about vaccine supply.

Local data can be found on Public Health Scotland’s interactive dashboard including vaccinations by council area .