Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government’s approach to tackling health inequalities focusses on three key aspects of health inequality: mitigating against the socio-economic drivers of inequalities; ensuring fair opportunities for health improvement for all individuals; and ensuring health services are accessible to all.

Our COVID-19 Recovery Strategy sets out our vision for how we will address the systemic inequalities that lead to health inequalities. This includes making progress towards a wellbeing economy and accelerating inclusive person-centred public services. We are committing £4 billion in social security and welfare payments over the next financial year, including £197 million to double the Scottish Child Payment and extend it to under 16s.

Equity and inclusivity will be at the heart of our place-based approach to health, where we are looking at what more we can do to create the right conditions for health and wellbeing within local communities. In addition to community-led initiatives we’re committed to providing £9 million a year for smoking cessation services and £5.7 million for weight management services.

Additionally, the Scottish Government is taking robust action to address racialised health inequalities. We have published the Race Equality Immediate Priorities (IPP), which includes a range of commitments focused on pursuing health equity for minority ethnic people.

Our guidance to local authorities on the administration of the cost of living award, available at Local government finance circulars - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) , sets out that councils have discretion to choose how this support is provided to eligible households in order to ensure delivery in April 2022.

All local authorities have now confirmed that most payments are included as a credit in Council Tax Bills for 2022-23.

The Scottish Government remains committed to recovering health services fully from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Public Health Scotland is the national agency responsible for the monitoring and surveillance of data relating to blood borne viruses; however over the past two years it has prioritised its COVID-19 pandemic response over routine work.

Since the end of February 2022, the blood borne virus and STI team at PHS has begun to remobilise. This initial phase is prioritising on updating the HIV and HCV data for the past two years.

This will be followed by recommencing all previous surveillance initiatives, data collection and analysis. the Scottish Government will do all it can to support that effort.

The Scottish Government remains committed to our target of eliminating hepatitis C in Scotland by 2024; however, we must acknowledge the impact that the Covid-19 pandemic has had on all our health services.

We are exploring in collaboration with the Scottish Health Protection Network Hepatitis C group where focused interventions would bring about the biggest impact and support us to reach our target. We intend to include concrete proposals in the next iteration of the sexual Health and Blood Borne Viruses Framework, which we expect to publish later this year.

A directors letter (DL) was issued by Chief Nursing Officer on 31 March regarding the de-escalation of enhanced IPC measures as we now observe that harms associated with reduced elective services within NHS Scotland are now outweighing COVID-19 harms. The DL outlined the removal of guidance on physical distancing and car sharing as well as changes to the types of COVID-19 tests that are available for patient use.

NSS ARHAI Scotland are also undertaking a gap analysis across the current Scottish Winter (21/22), Respiratory Infections in Health and Care Settings Addendum and the National Infection, Prevention and Control Manual (NIPCM). This analysis will highlight which COVID-19 specific aspects of the winter respiratory guidance, require to be retained and carried over into the NIPCM. This work is envisaged to be completed in early May.

Providing consistent high quality personalised care for people living in care homes is a key priority for health and care services in Scotland. The Scottish Government is clear that anyone living in a care home who would benefit from access to NHS services should receive it. This includes access to care and support in relation to symptoms caused by long-term effects of COVID-19, where such services are clinically assessed to be in the best interest for their care.

The Scottish Government is currently working with people, families, the care home sector and other stakeholders to develop a framework for adults living in care homes. The Framework will seek to examine how the health and care of people living in care homes should be optimised, supported, and delivered, and to ensure that they receive the right care from health care professions at the right time and have access to the same level of involvement, choice and support for their health and wellbeing as if they were living in their own home. It will also aim to enhance the health of people living within a care home, improving the way we assess, monitor and respond to enduring and changing health and care needs through working with health and care professionals, health and social care partnerships and care home providers.

In addition, we have awarded the Care Inspectorate £95,000 to enable them to build on the learning from the Care About Physical Activity (CAPA) programme. The project will work across cares homes, care at home, housing support and day services for adults, with a focus on engaging people in physical and mental activities and movement in order to positively affect health and wellbeing.

The Scottish Government continues to monitor the wider physical and mental health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic through the following initiatives:

? Scottish Health Survey - This survey monitors physical and mental health in the Scottish population. The latest published results are based on the telephone survey conducted in 2020. The results of the 2021 survey will be published in November 2022.

? Scottish COVID-19 Mental Health Tracker Study - This study measured the mental health and wellbeing impacts of the pandemic on Scottish adults. The latest phase, covering Summer 2021, was published on 24 February 2022.

? COVID-19 wider impacts on the healthcare system - This dashboard, published by Public Health Scotland, shows activity trends across areas of the healthcare system including Cardiovascular, Cancer and Mental Health services.

? YouGov online polling - Opinion polling continues on Scottish adults around once a month. Throughout the pandemic questions have been asked regarding concerns about mental health and loneliness.

? COVID-19 burden of disease - The Scottish burden of disease study looks to estimate the overall impact, and inequalities in the impact, of COVID-19 on public health measures.

Public Health Scotland also continue to publish on their website a wide range of research and statistics which will help to monitor areas of physical and mental health as time progresses.

On 11 March we published the National Health and Social Care Workforce Strategy.

As part of the strategy, we have committed to taking forward specific actions to improve how we gather, use and assess NHS Workforce data. This includes taking steps to improve the demographic data we collect and the analysis we undertake of data obtained at different geographic levels within our health and social care system.

The strategy further commits us to taking forward complementary actions to improve workforce planning capacity and capability within our health boards and health and social care partnerships (HSCPs).

New guidance has already been communicated to health boards and HSCPs to support the production of demand-led 3-year workforce plans, supported by local systems’ workforce data. Later this year we will also publish new staffing projections for health and social care.

Complementary data systems and data improvement work is taking place, as part of the Implementation Programme being established to support delivery of the Workforce Strategy. We have undertaken to publish annual updates outlining progress with the strategy’s implementation, in support of our tri-partite ambition to achieve long-term workforce sustainability through recovery, growth and service transformation.

( a) The information requested is not held centrally.

(b) The Scottish Government recognises that accurate data on long COVID prevalence and symptoms is needed to forecast and plan for the need for healthcare services arising from long COVID. Public Health Scotland will lead on surveillance of long COVID. It is currently anticipated that this surveillance will be undertaken via the EAVE II study, in collaboration with the University of Edinburgh ( About EAVE II | The University of Edinburgh ). Funded by the Medical Research Council, the EAVE II study has used a pseudonymised patient dataset to track the COVID-19 pandemic across Scotland. In a separate project funded by the Chief Scientist Office, the EAVE II dataset will be used to create a tool to identify people at greatest risk of developing long COVID. The findings will in due course provide information about the number of people diagnosed with long COVID and their use of health services, including among residents of care homes.

Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit continues to be delivered by the UK Government who decide which conditions should be prescribed for the purposes of the benefit. Once the Scottish Government commences delivery of Employment Injury Assistance, it will be able to consider which diseases and occupations should be prescribed for the purposes of entitlement.

The Scottish Government will undertake a public consultation on Employment Injury Assistance well in advance of delivery which will consider a range of issues relating to its delivery and administration.

Individuals who are impacted by long COVID may be entitled to Adult Disability Payment, the Scottish Government replacement for Personal Independence Payment, depending on their individual circumstances.