Chamber and committees

I have set out today some of the steps that we are taking to generate additional demand—to get the blue-envelope letters that I spoke about to particular age cohorts, and to encourage people who have not yet been vaccinated that, even at this stage, it is not too late and that they should get their vaccination. We will continue to use such methods to encourage people to come forward. By the end of January, of course, everybody who is over 18 will have been offered the booster vaccination.

I say, pretty bluntly: if you are eligible and able to be vaccinated but are choosing not to be vaccinated, you are being deeply irresponsible and selfish; you are putting your own life much more at risk; and you are putting more at risk the lives of everybody you come into contact with. That was true before the emergence of omicron and it may be even more true now. Please, therefore, for your own sake, get vaccinated. However, if you are not going to do it for your own sake, do it for the sake of others you are coming into contact with and, for goodness’ sake, do not put their lives on the line.

The Government would certainly be happy to talk to trade unions about any concerns that they have about the issue. Understandably, concerns have been raised about seafarers in the past and we have looked at those. It is clear that there is a need to have protective measures in place, but we do not want to have measures in place that are any more onerous than necessary. We look at these matters regularly, and I will write or ask the health secretary to write to the member with an update on particular considerations around managed quarantine for seafarers. I would be happy to discuss any remaining concerns with trade unions.

What I would tell Beatrice Wishart’s constituent and indeed anyone across the country is that the Government is investing in the additional staffing and additional capacity to ensure that we are recovering and reducing the backlog that has been created by Covid as quickly as possible, and that work is continuing to intensify.

The second thing that I would say to everybody is that the more we reduce the pressure that Covid is putting on the health service and the more we reduce Covid’s ability to delay and pause other treatments, the less of a backlog we will create. It comes back to my central point today: we are again at a critical juncture. I wish that we were not facing that again in the shape of the new variant, but it is a moment where all of us have a part to play to reduce that pressure and reduce the number of cases overall. That will help to reduce the pressure on the NHS and allow it to do more to recover the backlog as quickly as possible.

My ministers and I report regularly to Parliament on the range of NHS pressures and the actions that are being taken to address and resolve them. That will continue—in fact, I strongly suspect that it will only intensify over the winter.

I will address the specific points that were raised. Last week, I explained the issue that led to a relatively small number of people being turned away from vaccination centres. We were in the process of changing the protocols and guidance—instead of saying that there had to be a 24-week gap between second doses and boosters, we were saying that there had to be a 12-week gap. As we now know, we had that problem for a short period because we made that change more quickly than other Governments. In England, for example, that advice might not be in operation before 13 December.

In addition, some people were turned away in parts of Glasgow on Friday, for example, because of the busyness of vaccination centres. Again, action has been taken to ensure that there is the capacity in clinics, in terms of vaccinators, to enable such issues to be dealt with.

I have always said that, with a programme of the scale and complexity of this one, there will be problems at times, and we are working to resolve those problems as quickly as we can. Again, however, I ask everybody to acknowledge—not for the sake of the Government, but for the sake of those who are working so hard to deliver the programme—that we are the most vaccinated part of the UK. I suspect that, when the figures are published today, we will see that more than 40 per cent of the over-12 population have now received a booster vaccination. That is considerably ahead of any of the other UK nations, to the credit of those who are organising the programme and resolving the problems when they arise, as well as those who are administering vaccines in the centres in every part of the country.

On the point about the festive season, part of the work that we are doing right now is ensuring that we avoid, as far as possible, what often happens over the Christmas and new year break, which is that activity drops, and that the rate of vaccinations per week is maintained at the level that we have right now, so that we keep the flow through to the end of January, by which time we want to have completed the booster programme. Every effort is being made to ensure that all of that is fully taken into account.

On staffing in the health service, recruitment in our health service and social care, similarly to recruitment across our economy right now, is a significant challenge, partly because of the pressure that has come from the ending of freedom of movement. That is affecting the national health service, and we must be blunt about the reasons for that. Notwithstanding that, however, the figures that were published today show that we have a higher number of people working in the national health service than we have ever had before. I think that we have almost 30,000 more people working in our national health service than we did when this Government took office, and this is, I think, the ninth consecutive year of an increasing NHS workforce.

That is what this Government has delivered, and we are focused on delivering more of that. We are looking to accelerate recruitment, and I note that, when I came into the chamber this afternoon, the health secretary was talking about some of the work that is under way.

We continue to focus on those challenges as we go through this winter, and I remind people that all of us have a part to play in helping to relieve the pressure on the NHS.

Yes, I do. The Scottish Government has been heavily engaged in the matter all week. The Scottish Government resilience committee has met on several occasions; I chaired the most recent of those meetings just yesterday. There have been extensive discussions daily—several times a day—with the power companies.

I take this opportunity to express my sympathies to everybody who has been impacted by storm Arwen. The storm was almost unprecedented—it is certainly unprecedented in recent memory—in its severity. Its impact has been extreme. Many thousands of people have suffered very difficult experiences as a result, and some are still suffering.

I turn to power connection issues. At the start, more than 200,000 customers were off supply. As of this morning—it is a moving picture, obviously—around 3,300 are still not reconnected. The power companies are working intensively on that, and the estimate is that it might take until the end of this week to get absolutely everybody back on the power supply. A lot of welfare support is being provided and, again, the Government is working with resilience partnerships to ensure that that is happening as it should.

This has been a really difficult time. There are lessons for all of us to learn. The Scottish Government will lead, through our resilience arrangements, a lessons-learned exercise, once the impact has been addressed. One of the lessons is around communication.

I know that the power companies have been working extensively and intensively to get people reconnected. The damage has been extreme, but there are lessons that everybody can learn, and we will certainly ensure that that happens—once, of course, everybody is back on power and the immediate impacts have been addressed.

I take the opportunity again to thank vaccinators and vaccination teams across the country. Scotland currently has the fastest vaccination programme anywhere in the UK on the first, second and third doses and, crucially, on booster doses. That is a credit not to the Government but to those who work so hard in every corner of the country every single day.

The Government has a heavy responsibility in ensuring that the pace of the programme does not just continue, but accelerates. As I said on Tuesday, we are focused on that happening.

Let me explain yesterday’s issue. I apologise to anyone who was turned away from a vaccine clinic yesterday. When advice changes, as the JCVI’s advice did on Monday, there is a process of updating protocols and materials to ensure that everything is done in line with clinical protocol, because vaccination is a clinical procedure.

In the normal course of events, that process would take around a week. However, the process has now happened already. We have taken steps to ensure that the information has been cascaded down to vaccination clinics everywhere across Scotland. It is important that people who had that experience yesterday—I stress that it was a small number of people—go to the website and re-book their appointment now, if they are over that three-month period.

The vaccination programme continues to go well. As I said candidly many times, there might be glitches in the system, such as that which we saw yesterday, particularly when advice changes quickly. We try to avoid that happening, but we take steps to rectify matters as quickly as possible when those glitches happen.

I saw on social media this morning that a prominent journalist was narrating exactly the same experience at a vaccine clinic in England. We are all dealing with those issues now, but we are ensuring that we are working hard to continue the excellent progress of the vaccination programme.

I remind people that Scotland currently has the fastest vaccination programme anywhere in the UK.

I recognise that tomorrow is the international day for persons with disabilities. It is an important reminder of our obligations to people who are living with disabilities to ensure that we make our countries and our societies as inclusive as possible.

It is fair to say, and I take the opportunity to say it today, that Karen Adam herself is a shining example of somebody who uses her public platform to raise the profile of BSL. I pay tribute to her for doing that. [Applause.]

These things matter, and the really moving moment on “Strictly Come Dancing” a couple of weeks ago, when Rose Ayling-Ellis took the opportunity to use that platform to raise awareness, will live in people’s memories for a long time.

I also take the opportunity to thank publicly the BSL interpreters who have helped me to communicate with the country during the Covid pandemic. We owe them a huge debt of gratitude for ensuring that our public messages have reached as many people as possible.

On the specific question, I note that we are working to expand opportunities around education and are updating guidance on the appropriate qualifications, including the BSL qualification, for teachers of children and young people who have sensory impairments. Through the inclusion of BSL in the one-plus-two languages policy, there are now more opportunities to learn BSL. The Government, through the Scottish Funding Council, is continuing to invest in BSL education and training in higher education.

With regard to the comment about the issue being resolved, the chief medical officer for Scotland issued the guidance yesterday. All health boards have that guidance and are expected to implement it. My advice is that people who are eligible for a booster vaccination under the new JCVI advice should book it, and health boards will implement the new guidance.

I repeat, not to make an excuse but as an important point of context, that vaccination—the most vital thing that we are doing right now—is a clinical process and procedure. It has to be backed up by protocols. When advice changes, those protocols have to change, which is a process that normally takes a lot longer than this. Rightly and properly, it is being done more quickly because of the urgency of the vaccination programme. That is a process that health boards are now implementing to ensure that they are giving effect to the changed guidance.

I absolutely accept that, for anybody who finds themselves in this position—again, it is a small number of people—the situation is really frustrating. I am sorry that they are having this experience. I ask them to go ahead and re-book. They will be vaccinated in line with the new advice.

This is the biggest vaccination programme that has ever been undertaken—that is true of not only Scotland but every country that is administering these vaccines. It is being administered alongside the flu vaccination programme, and it is an enormous logistical exercise. I have never stood here and said that every single aspect of the programme will go absolutely smoothly all the time. When problems arise, we rectify them quickly.

I make no apology for, yet again, taking a step back—and asking other people to step back—from all this to recognise the enormous achievement that the vaccination programme represents. I do not say that to get credit for the Government; the credit belongs 100 per cent to the people who have designed the programme and those who are delivering it, as we speak, in every part of Scotland. It is the fastest vaccination programme in the UK, with 27,000 lives already saved in Scotland, according to a World Health Organization study. It is a success story, and I take very seriously my responsibility to ensure that it continues to be a success story so that we get as many people vaccinated with boosters as far and as fast as possible. That is an obligation and a duty that this Government takes seriously every day.

I absolutely recognise the plight of those who are suffering from long Covid. It is a dreadful and often complex condition, and clinicians and scientists are still working to understand exactly how it impacts on people.

I do not accept that our response has not been equal to the scale of the challenge. However, I absolutely accept that our response and the response of all Governments will have to scale up and adapt considerably as we learn more about long Covid. We have already published an approach paper, which set out 16 commitments to improving care and support for people with long Covid in Scotland. That is important. Those commitments are already backed by a £10 million long Covid support fund, so the financial commitment already exists.

I fully expect that there will be a requirement for additional financial support not just in this budget but perhaps for years to come, as we continue to understand and respond to long Covid. I cannot, and I am not going to, pre-empt the budget next week, but it will include a significant increase in funding for the national health service. As one of the many obligations on the shoulders of the national health service, responding to the needs of people with long Covid is important.

It is a timely report and we will consider it fully. The views of carers will be heard as part of the next review of the national performance framework, which is due to start next year. We are committed to creating a national care service to increase the quality of care and to improve fair work in social care. We are currently improving pay and terms and conditions for social care workers.

Carers make a highly significant and valuable contribution to our society and the wellbeing of the country. That is why, for example, we introduced the carers allowance supplement, which provides more than £230 twice a year to each carer on top of carers allowance, to support around 91,000 unpaid carers. We provided an additional payment last year and we will do so again this month. We are also providing an additional £28.5 million for local carers support in this financial year.

I take the opportunity to put on record my thanks to carers all over the country. I recognise that this pandemic period has made what they already do and have to deal with even more difficult.