Chamber and committees

The first observation that I would make on Mr Whittle’s question is that, in a sense, he has just echoed one of the fundamental points that I made in my response to Mr Fraser. It is important that we deduce lessons from the pandemic and, if they are important, that we learn from them and apply them. I happen to take that view about the statutory framework and Mr Whittle has put to me an entirely legitimate point about data and IT.

Scotland has been very well served by some critical decisions that were made a long time ago on the unique identifier—the community health index or CHI number—which has acted as the foundation for the administration of healthcare in Scotland based on the individual. It enables information on and records for an individual to be accessed appropriately to ensure that high-quality healthcare is delivered for that individual. That has been a strong foundation of our system but, of course, every development that comes along puts extra pressures on the core system. Covid has put many data demands on the system, particularly with regard to vaccination records and all that comes with such issues.

The Government has been taking active steps to ensure a strong approach to the delivery of digital care, and I think that it has got ever stronger over the course of the pandemic. What lies at the heart of the system is appropriate information technology capability to ensure that we can identify and meet the needs of individuals, and the Government will be working closely on that with health boards to keep the foundations of our IT system up to date and ensure that we meet the needs of individuals.

I would want to look at exactly what circumstances the clinicians were raising with the committee this morning, but my understanding is that, throughout the health service, the capacity and capability exists to access critical information about the healthcare of each individual. That is why I referred to the CHI number, which underpins and drives the system. I want to understand a bit better some of the deficiencies that have been highlighted but, in principle, I agree with Mr Whittle’s points about the availability of data and the necessity of collecting the appropriate data in our healthcare systems. I think it important to have a system that can be accessed in all different spheres of the health service. I am very happy to look at those issues and the particular points raised by the clinicians this morning, and I will encourage the health secretary to look at these questions and determine what further action requires to be taken.

It is always like that. It is part of our relationship.

I will turn to Professor Leitch to answer that point, but the World Health Organization’s advice to us at this stage of the pandemic in general is to take care and not to think that everything is over and done with. The position that the Scottish Government has taken on, for example, the continued use of face coverings as a mandatory provision is in line with the guidance from the World Health Organization. The WHO will encourage us to maintain a testing infrastructure that enables us to identify what the prevalence of the virus is in our society and what we can contribute to international understanding of the virus by virtue of the information that we collect and the experience that we have.

In relation to specific measures and restrictions, the World Health Organization may set out what it thinks is desirable, but we as a Government have to judge whether that is proportionate, because we have to be satisfied that we could withstand legal challenge to any of the decisions that we take. Generally, however, the advice of the World Health Organisation at this pivotal moment of the pandemic is to take care. I turn to Professor Leitch to answer the specific question on the WHO’s testing advice.

I am again speculating, but the advice that we have received from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation will result in us issuing vaccination appointments to all five to 11-year-olds very shortly. We will start issuing them in mid-March and do most of them around the Easter holidays. Additional boosters will be provided to care home residents, people who are over 75 and people who are over 12 who are immunosuppressed. That activity will dominate the spring and the period towards the summer. That probably makes it likely that we are heading towards a booster programme in the autumn, but we will await JCVI advice on that particular question. Assuming that there is no substantive deterioration in the situation, I think that we will be moving into a period when we will be relying on vaccination to provide us with effective resilience.

We are obviously working closely with the long-standing relationships that we have with those countries to play our part responsibly to support the vaccination programmes that are under way there. As a Government, we accept the importance of fulfilling our international obligations to ensure that the whole world is protected from Covid, because only by the whole world being protected from Covid do we have as much assurance and security as it is possible to have. Our co-operation will be to that end.

We have had discussions in this committee and across Parliament on countless occasions, and Mr Rowley has consistently questioned me on the impact on people of non-Covid health harms. Those questions are absolutely legitimate, and I would be the first to acknowledge that waiting lists are larger and longer than they were before the pandemic, but that is a direct result of the pandemic.

No health board in the country wants to put off tackling those waiting lists—they want to get into a position to be able to do so as early as possible. However, we have to be mindful of the presence and prevalence of Covid. Although we have seen a fall in Covid admissions to hospitals in general over the past few weeks, Covid admissions are unfortunately rising again, to our unease, as is the number of people in hospital with Covid.

I assure the committee—this is part of the NHS recovery plan, and it is inherent in the Government’s investment in elective treatment centres—that we are anxious to expand the capacity to enable us to address the very issue that Mr Rowley fairly puts to me, so that members of the public who are suffering with pain and need a hip replacement, for example, can expect to have that treatment within a reasonable timescale.

I contend that that is what the NHS recovery plan does. It focuses entirely on the issue of making up for the treatment that has been lost because of Covid. Each health board is under an obligation, in respect of the plan that it has had to submit to the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, as to how it is going to go about doing that. We are keen to ensure that we make progress as swiftly and as early as possible on advancing that treatment.

Of course.

The amendment regulations extend the date on which the Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Requirements) (Scotland) Regulations 2021 expire, from 28 February 2022 to 24 September 2022. If that expiry date is not changed, the baseline measures will automatically cease on Monday 28 February.

We have started taking steps to remove the baseline measures. The First Minister announced to the Parliament on Tuesday that the Covid certification scheme will come to an end on Monday, and this morning I signed regulations that will make that happen. Murdo Fraser was, quite simply, plain wrong on what he said to the Parliament on that point.

We expect that the other legal requirements will be converted to guidance on 21 March, although, as the First Minister said on Tuesday, that is subject to there being

“no significant adverse developments in the course of the virus”.—[Official Report, 22 February 2022; c 18.]