Chamber and committees

We will ensure that refreshed guidance is issued to health boards to ensure that they understand what the appropriate measures are for hospital visiting. I set out today that we do not want to stop visiting; it is really important that visiting goes ahead. It is important for people in hospital and for their loved ones, but we are suggesting a limit on the number of visitors for each patient at any one time.

Visiting should continue, with appropriate precautions and mitigations. Patients should not be denied visitors except in very short-term and specific circumstances, such as managing an on-going outbreak, in which case hospitals can put in place temporary visiting restrictions. However, even when hospitals are managing an outbreak, we expect what we call essential visits to continue. A person with dementia is a clear example of someone we would expect to receive essential visits, even during an outbreak.

For goodness’ sake, I ask members why on earth I would want to stop public health messages getting to people in every part of Scotland. What could be my motivation for that? That is a bit rich coming from the Conservatives, who spend a lot of their time trying to prevent me from giving public health messages.

I do not know why that is the case. I will look into it urgently. Many, but not all, of our public health messages right now are being done on a UK-wide basis. We are co-operating with the UK Government to ensure consistency of messaging. By all means raise these things, but raising them in a tone of voice that suggests that somehow I have a motivation to stop people in the south of Scotland getting public health messages is utterly ridiculous.

I certainly think that there is an argument for that, and I would be more than happy to look at it in detail and consider the Scottish Government’s position.

It is absolutely right to say that we are advising people to work from home wherever they can and—as of this week—strengthening that requirement on businesses. It is not just that it reduces the risk of transmission in workplaces; it also reduces the number of contacts that people have when they travel to work or have lunch while they are there. Working from home helps to take away some of the transmission risk and, given what we are facing right now, that is important.

For those who have to work, it is important that there are appropriate mitigations. Testing is one of the most important mitigations. Yes, there are people who suffer from long Covid and there are long-term implications that might affect their ability to work, but sickness pay, and much of the benefits system, is still reserved to the UK Government. There will be issues that we need to address, and I hope that this Parliament will come together to help us to put those issues very much on the UK Government’s radar screen.

We will do that as far as possible. I understand the frustration, anxiety and distress on the part of businesses that, like all of us, have now had two years of guidance that changes as the pandemic changes.

However, I ask all members to listen to what I said earlier. Cases of this variant of the virus are doubling every two to three days. It is moving faster than anything that we have dealt with before in the course of the pandemic, which is quite a statement, because we have dealt with really difficult situations before. Therefore, speed of response is now more important than it has ever been. I understand that businesses would prefer that we waited for a few days to tell them what we are going to do a week hence so that they could have a week to prepare, but, in a week, this variant of the virus will have doubled three or four times. That is why speed is so important.

I wish that we were not in this situation but we are, and we do not do businesses or anyone else in society any favours if we do not try to act as fast as the virus is replicating.

That is an issue that we have discussed constructively in four-nations meetings over the course of the past week. As members would expect, it is an issue that has been raised by me, the First Minister of Wales and the First Minister and Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland. As I said, I have not seen the detail of what the UK Government has announced; I look forward to seeing that later, and I welcome it.

The basic principle here, which should apply across all parts of the UK, is that, if we feel that it is essential to take measures to protect public health, we should not be constrained in doing so because of financial considerations. It should not be the case that money is triggered only if the UK Government decides to take steps; if the Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish Governments, acting within devolved responsibilities, think that that is important, we should be able to trigger that support as well. It is about parity and not asking for one part of the UK to have an advantage over the other. We all pay for this and it is important that we all have equal access to financial support for businesses and individuals whose livelihoods are on the line.

Everything should be kept open and under review, including the reinstatement of furlough over what we hope will not be, but might be, a really challenging period for businesses in the weeks to come.

In principle, the answer to that question would be yes. There will be some caveats regarding which vaccinations they have had in the countries that they have come from. I do not have the detail of that, and therefore do not know whether they can have the boosters here. If Liz Smith would like to write to me or to the health secretary with details, I will be able to give an answer that is particular to the case, rather than the general answer that I can give on the basis of the information that I have now.

There is no blanket policy that says that elderly patients in hospital cannot be vaccinated in the hospital; that is down to a clinical decision and judgment. I will certainly ask the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care to see whether we need to issue any more guidance to health boards to ensure that that happens.

I will come to that point directly. People who listened to our—quite constructive, I thought—exchange last week will have heard me set out the exact trigger points for a notification to the Scottish Government.

On the issue of the oversight board, the point is not about meetings but about actions. To be precise, 88 per cent of the oversight board’s recommendations have already been completed and the remaining actions do not relate directly to patient safety. The advice, assurance and review group will meet next week, on Friday 17 December, and the interim chief nursing officer will chair the meeting. It is about ensuring that recommendations are implemented, and that is what has happened.

As the Presiding Officer will recall, I set out at some length last week the fact that notifications to Government under the HIIAT procedure happen when two or more linked cases of infection occur, and I set out the number that had happened in the adult hospital. That point is about triggering a notification to the Scottish Government. However, when those notifications do not happen, it does not mean that no action is taken. Health boards have problem assessment groups or other types of actions that address any issues relating to infections.

It is simply not the case that infections are not taken seriously. As I said last week—a point that Anas Sarwar conceded and agreed with—it will never be possible for any hospital anywhere to eradicate and avoid all cases of infection, despite the best efforts. However, all cases of infection are taken seriously at the Queen Elizabeth university hospital and at every other hospital, which is what I expect.

We are at the start of winter. I will ask the Minister for Transport to write directly to Liam Kerr with a full update on the timing and costs that are associated with the Haudagain roundabout, which I know is incredibly important to commuters in Aberdeen.