Chamber and committees

Those discussions are under way. As I said, we will be finalising the request for military assistance shortly. That is one of many actions that we are taking. We are providing additional resource, and I think that resource funding to the Ambulance Service is at record levels, with staffing at higher levels than it has been in previous years. There is further recruitment under way.

The problems that the Ambulance Service faces are to some extent caused by pressures elsewhere in the national health service, not least in our accident and emergency departments. A lot of work is being done to try to alleviate those pressures. We will continue to take the actions necessary to support those who work in the Ambulance Service to provide the level of service that patients demand and have a right to expect.

I have already said today that I do not think it is acceptable for anyone to have to wait for the kinds of periods that are being reported at the moment. That is not acceptable even during pandemic conditions. That is why we are focused on finding solutions to allow the Ambulance Service to provide the level of response that it wants to offer and that people have a right to expect.

People who are watching this will draw their own conclusions from the tone and tenor of the remarks that are being made. I will stay on the substance of the issues, because they are important for people across the country and have my full attention, as they have the health secretary’s full attention.

Douglas Ross continues to question me about terminology, so let us be clear. The pandemic has created—not just in Scotland, but across the UK and much of the world—crisis conditions for our health services. That includes the Ambulance Service, which is at the front line of the response of our health service for so many patients who need it. The point that I am making is that whatever someone like me chooses to call it is less important than what we do to support our service in meeting the challenges. I think that people who are listening today will have recognised that we are already taking a range of actions. [Interruption.] There are almost 300 additional paramedics and technicians—[Interruption.]

A range of actions have already been taken. As I was saying, almost 300 additional paramedics and technicians are being recruited to help to meet the challenge. We are supporting the service in a wide range of ways.

In saying that, I in no way seek to underplay how unacceptable long waits are for anybody who experiences them. The majority of people who phone for an ambulance get an excellent service from the paramedics and technicians who provide it. We are considering a range of additional actions; I have set out some of them. The health secretary will make a statement next week to update Parliament on those actions. [Interruption.]

Somebody is shouting at me, “Why next week?” That is because that will be the next parliamentary opportunity to make a statement. I am—[Interruption.]

Douglas Ross is saying, “Do it now.” I am standing here right now, setting out what we are doing. The health secretary and I will be dealing with the matter over the course of today, tomorrow, the weekend and into next week, for as long as it takes.

Those are the steps that we are taking. We will continue to take those steps. Governments across the UK will be doing similar things to support their services. We are in the most challenging set of circumstances that our health service has faced. My job is to make sure that we support the Scottish Ambulance Service to rise to the challenges. That is what I will focus on each and every minute of each and every day.

Yes, that is absolutely correct. We have been warning for months and months about the implications not just of Brexit but of a hard Brexit. Just this week, as the member rightly says, we have seen a further delay to the necessary, though deeply regrettable, infrastructure that needs to be in place to support some of this. It is our food and drink and agriculture sectors that are paying the price. I very much hope to see solutions put in place to alleviate the situation as quickly as possible. However, I do not think that anybody should be in any doubt that those sectors will face the inescapable consequences of Brexit for some time to come. That is, of course, the responsibility of the Tory Government at Westminster.

We will continue to work across the education sector to make sure that we take all appropriate actions to support the safe return of teaching, and to ensure that physical distancing remains in place, face coverings continue to be used and vaccination continues to be encouraged. There is an opportunity over the next few weeks to really maximise the uptake of vaccination, and to use testing to full extent, too. There is a big responsibility on the part of everybody here to make sure that everything possible is being done to reduce the risk of outbreaks in the weeks to come.

First, lateral flow testing is not the only mitigation that is being applied in schools. The work around carbon dioxide monitors, leading to the assessment of ventilation, is under way. A range of other mitigations are in place and, of course, contact tracing has not been ended in schools; it is being done, rightly, on a more targeted and proportionate basis because, before the summer holidays, we knew that significant numbers of young people were having their education disrupted when that was not strictly necessary.

On how we get more young people to take lateral flow tests, we make the tests available free of charge and they are easily accessible. I think that it is incumbent on all of us, both in the chamber and in our own constituent networks and in every possible way, to encourage young people to take those tests. I understand that, for young people in particular, they are not pleasant and are inconvenient, but they provide us with an added layer of protection. I take the opportunity today to encourage all young people—and encourage parents and carers—to take up the opportunity of LF testing twice a week and additionally if they get a low-risk contact letter.

We should remember that 85 per cent of the adult population are now fully vaccinated, and that number is increasing daily. In Scotland, first doses for 18 to 29-year-olds increased by 11 per cent in the 12 days following our announcement of Covid certification compared with the numbers in the previous 12 days. Again, I think that we can see—although it is still early—that that is having an impact in driving up vaccination uptake.

We encourage everyone to get vaccinated. Some people will not have completed their full vaccination course when the certification scheme comes into place, but people can check their vaccination status through NHS Inform, and details are available of how to do that. The app will go live later this month, which will make the system even easier.

These are all things that none of us wants to have to do and I hope that the vaccination system does not have to be in place for very long. However, while it can give us an added layer of protection, particularly as we go into the winter months, it is important that we take advantage of it.

I want to take the opportunity again today to express my gratitude to the nurses and everyone else who is working so hard across the national health service. We have a record number of staff in our health service, including nurses, but we need to do more to support them. We have made a commitment to further increase the number of those working in our national health service over this parliamentary session.

We will continue to work closely with health boards to ensure that they are supported to minimise any need to postpone or cancel elective treatments and to ensure that the most urgent treatment—cancer treatment comes under that definition—continues as people need it to.

However, there is a fact at the heart of this: if we are to get our NHS back to normal—as everyone is working hard to do—we need to get Covid cases down further and to keep them down. This comment is particularly relevant for those on the Conservative benches: we need to be prepared to take the action that gets Covid cases down. Over the past few weeks, almost every mitigation that we have proposed to try to reduce the number of Covid cases has been opposed by the Conservatives. Covid cases will not fall of their own accord—they will only fall through the actions that we take individually and collectively. We all desperately want to reduce the pressure on our national health service, and if we are to do that, we need to keep doing all the things that we know will reduce transmission of the virus.

The requirement for vaccination certification does not apply to 12 to 15-year-olds, so that point is not relevant.

I will not repeat all the points that I have made about the on-going work to develop the finalised detail of the operation of the system on a sector-specific basis, but I can say that the detail of the vaccination certification programme in Scotland is identical to that published on page 24 of the UK Government’s document today, in which it sets out what it continues to call plan B, which concerns its continued plans to introduce vaccination certification should that be required. The only difference is that we are trying to give businesses here certainty and the UK Government appears to have removed that certainty and is just saying that maybe it will introduce vaccination certification and maybe it will not. However, the level of detail is pretty identical.

That is an important issue for those who took part in vaccine trials, and I thank anybody who did so. We have been very clear that nobody who took part in a trial will be disadvantaged; the scheme will recognise their vaccination for domestic purposes. All clinical trial participants have already received a letter from their principal investigator, which can be used for proof of their trial status. That provided an interim measure to enable people to gain access to domestic venues where certification is required. Recently, we have also issued participants with a record of vaccination that contains a 1D barcode and security features consistent with all records of vaccination.