Chamber and committees

I will try to cover all the points that were raised there under three broad headings, as briefly as possible. I am probably betraying my age here, but I am never entirely sure what gaslighting exactly means in practice. However, I am not blaming staff. Nobody is blaming staff. The letter that was written to me and the health secretary yesterday was from clinicians and clinical voices—the head of medicine, medical directors and people who are part of the clinical community.

The point is this—and this is not blaming staff; this is recognising a reality. When individual patients or their families are communicated with, it is not a health board that communicates with them; it is clinicians. I have the utmost confidence in the way in which clinicians do that and the seriousness with which they take the duty of candour and honesty to patients. The point that I am making, though, is that if any clinician considers that they are being pressurised into doing something different, bullied into doing something different or told to do something different, they should not hesitate to bring that directly to me or to the health secretary. We will not tolerate that.

The second point is about hiding behind process. Anas Sarwar called for the public inquiry and it is right and proper that that happened. There is a criminal investigation on-going into certain cases. The independent review and the oversight board were important pieces of process that led to many recommendations that have been implemented and to real investment in the water and ventilation systems at the hospital.

I come back to this point, which will lead me into my last point. In saying this, I am not minimising the seriousness of every infection, but the Queen Elizabeth hospital, in published statistics on infection and standardised mortality data, actually performs better than the national average. That shows that some of the actions that are being taken are working. Clinicians in that hospital deliver a high quality of care across a very complex range of treatments.

That takes me to my final point, which is on the “sack the board” cry. This is really serious—

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.

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 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.

On 27 October, the Scottish Government published its “British Sign Language (BSL): Progress Report 2021”, which outlines the progress that is being made towards implementing the BSL national plan. It outlines progress on a range of fronts including education, BSL English interpreting and public life.

The report outlines how the Scottish Government has funded BSL partnership organisations to engage with and support public bodies with their plans and notes important developments, including the decision that our next census will, for the first time, ask, “Can you use BSL?”

Significant progress has been made towards making the country more inclusive and supportive of BSL users. The language enjoys a higher profile than ever before in our public life, and it is ever more visible in media and communications. That is a really important development.

The advice that we gave is the advice, and it is the advice that I give again today. I understand that that is no comfort to each and every one of the small number of people who were affected, which is why I am saying that I am sorry that they had that experience. A small number—a minority—of people, in the time when the protocols and guidance were being updated, were wrongly turned away from clinics. However, many people—I know some of those people personally—got their vaccinations over the past couple of days, within the updated guidance.

This is one of those situations, in a massive programme, in which the advice changed very quickly and substantially and in which—yes, I concede—a small number of people had an experience that they should not have had. We are rectifying that—it is being rectified—and the advice remains that, if people are eligible for their vaccination within the new guidance, they should go online and book their appointment. The guidance has been updated and people will be vaccinated. That is the position.

It is also the position that the success of the programme cannot be denied. We have vaccinated with booster vaccinations—this is yesterday’s figure—more than 35 per cent of the over-12 population, which is ahead of England, Wales and Northern Ireland. We are not complacent about that and we are not resting on our laurels. The vaccination programme is a success because of the people who, right now, around the country, are working so hard.

Douglas Ross and any other member is right to raise issues when things go wrong or do not go as right as we want them to. However, some of the language that I have heard applied to the vaccination programme over the past 24 hours does a disservice to the people who are working hard every day to get jags into people’s arms. Let us not lose sight of the success that those people are delivering for us all right now in the fight against Covid.

Payment of berthing dues is a matter between the ferry operator, CalMac Ferries, and the statutory harbour authority. It is the responsibility of the harbour authority to ensure that harbours are well maintained and fit for purpose.

We are investing heavily in ports and vessels to support and improve ferry services, as part of the wider infrastructure investment plan that we have outlined. I will ask the Minister for Transport to write to Kenny Gibson with more detail about those investments and the work that we and Transport Scotland are doing with stakeholders, including Peel Ports Group, North Ayrshire Council and the Arran ferry group, to improve services and infrastructure specifically on the Arran route.

On Tuesday.