Chamber and committees

Yes. In principle, of course it does. I am not going to comment on individual cases, because people’s circumstances will be different, but I would say that the principles behind that statement should apply to anyone with any health condition. Nobody should feel pressured to go to work if their health says that it is not right for them to be at work. That applies in relation to people who have suffered from Covid and, given the nature of long Covid, it absolutely should apply to those suffering from that condition as well.

First, and perhaps most important, since the Government took office the number of A and E consultants working in our national health service has increased by 242 per cent. That is the investment in our national health service, and in the workforce of our national health service, that the Government has supported and will continue to support. Our accident and emergency departments are working under intense pressure, as is the NHS as a whole. That pressure has been considerably exacerbated because of Covid.

The figure that we saw last week of just over seven in 10 people being seen within four hours in A and E is not good enough. It is important to put that into context, because health services across the United Kingdom, Europe and the world are struggling with that pressure in similar ways. If we look at the last month for which full figures are available, performance in our core A and E departments in Scotland against the four-hour target was 79.5 per cent. That compares with 67.7 per cent in England and 60.7 per cent in Wales, so we clearly see pressure right across the UK.

For our part, we are supporting actions to allow our accident and emergency departments to address that pressure and improve waiting times. That includes, for example, work to enhance discharge processes, the redesign of urgent care, the opening of additional bed capacity, strengthening links with social and community care to maximise the community response and enhancing evening and weekend working.

We will continue to invest in staff and the NHS overall, and we will continue to support the reforms that allow patients to flow through the national health service more quickly than is the case at the moment. I would hope—although we are not complacent about this, given the pressures that we are facing—that we will start to see some improvement in the A and E waiting times in the weeks ahead.

That will be done partly in relation to age, as in the initial programme. The booster programme for older people in care homes started yesterday. As I said in my statement, boosters for those in the over-70 age group will start at the end of September. People will be notified either by letter or directly by their GP, as was the case in the original programme. Letters will begin to go out and there will be notifications from GPs over the next few weeks. The approach will be similar for other age groups.

An important point that I ask people to remember is that the JCVI, amidst all of its other recommendations around the booster programme, recommended a gap of six months between a person’s second vaccination and the booster vaccination. In my case, that would mean that I would not be eligible for a booster for some weeks yet.

The timing will be in line with advice and the order of priority, which is age and condition based. People will be notified in a way that is similar to how they were notified for the first and second doses of the vaccine.

We would expect night clubs to do checks on everyone who enters them. We are talking about spot checks for events—rather than venues—that are significantly bigger and where there may be thousands or at least several hundred people in attendance.

The issue of definitions is important, but if we do not have a definition of the type that I have set out, some venues may end up operating almost as nightclubs but without the need for the certification that nightclubs will need. We are trying to avoid market displacement, which is an important issue for nightclubs.

Let me stress that I set out four criteria for such a venue. A pub that is not a nightclub would have to meet all four of those criteria to be subject to the certification requirement. That is the best, most reasonable and most proportionate way of proceeding, and it ensures that nightclubs, in particular, are not disadvantaged, because some pubs can operate in an analogous way to them without the same requirements that they will be under. We will continue to discuss, as we have been doing, all the detail of that with the affected sectors.

Test and protect is responsible for the contact tracing that arises out of positive cases in schools. As I set out in my statement last week, I think, there are two categories. There are higher-risk contacts where the young person or their parents will be notified and asked to self-isolate pending a PCR test. Test and protect will judge whether somebody is a high-risk contact. Examples of situations that would fall into that category are where there has been an overnight stay or very close contact, or where siblings are involved.

For lower-risk contacts, letters will be sent when positive cases are identified. There will not be a request to self-isolate pending a PCR test, but advice will be given. A key part of that advice will be a recommendation for the young person, teacher or member of school staff to do an LFD test before they next go back to school.

We have made sure that that is as clear as possible for parents, young people and school staff, but it is driven by test and protect and the work that it does.

Six health boards started drop-in clinics for 12 to 15-year-olds yesterday, and all mainland health boards will have drop-in clinics operational by tomorrow. The island boards will, as they did with the main programme, go about things slightly differently because of their smaller and often more sparse populations.

The health boards that did not start yesterday have taken a bit more time to make sure that the vaccinators have the information that they need and are prepared, for example, to answer any questions that will help children and their parents or carers to arrive at informed consent, which is important. If a health board felt that it needed to do that, I understand why. However, across all mainland Scotland, drop-in clinics will be operational for that age group from tomorrow, and I would encourage everybody in that age group and their parents or carers to read all the information, ask any questions and get vaccinated.

First, it is important for all of us to be clear and to take every opportunity to reassure people that vaccines do not cause Covid infection—vaccines help to protect against Covid infection. We know—again, the data shows this—that for people who are particularly clinically vulnerable, a first dose of the vaccine offers protection, just as it does to somebody who is not clinically vulnerable.

We see high uptake rates among the highly clinically vulnerable group, which used to be referred to as the shielding group. I think that uptake rates in that group here are higher than those in other parts of the United Kingdom. However, we continue, as we do across all population groups, to try to boost the levels of vaccination up as far as possible. My message to anybody who has a clinical vulnerability is that it is important for everybody to get vaccinated, but it is perhaps even more so for them, because it provides them with that important protection against Covid.

On vaccination passports, it has been said:

“I really do defend these in principle ... I mean, if you think about ... where we were last September ... we would have been able”,

with certification,

“to keep open businesses that had been forced to close”,

which

“would’ve been a total game changer, a lifesaver, last year. And so I think that they’re an important part of our repertoire, and it’s great that loads of events have been working to use them. People have been making the system work.”

Those are the words, from just last week, of Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister.

We are being straight with people in saying that we are introducing vaccination passports because we think that they can make a difference, and we are doing the work to make the system operational. That is preferable to keeping businesses hanging on and saying, “Maybe we will introduce them and maybe we won’t,” as Craig Hoy’s colleagues south of the border are doing.

Ventilation is a really important part of what we are doing. We have made funding available to parts of the public sector, and ventilation guidance has been made available to businesses. We have also established a ventilation expert group to give us further recommendations and advice. One of the things that we will consider over the coming days is whether funding can and should be made available to help businesses to make necessary improvements in ventilation. We will set out more detail on that in due course.

The evidence and data are clear and become clearer all the time. It is absolutely the case that vaccination does not eradicate the risk of transmission—of somebody getting the virus or passing on the virus—but it reduces that risk significantly. The data is very clear and the figures in relation to the weakened link between cases and hospitalisations show that being vaccinated significantly reduces somebody’s risk, if they get the virus, of becoming seriously ill or dying from it. On both those counts, vaccination is very important and worth while.

Vaccination is literally the most important thing that any of us can do to protect ourselves and those around us. For anybody who has not yet done it, please think again. Ask any questions and raise any concerns that you have, and then please get jagged, because it is really important for you and for others.