Chamber and committees

Asylum is reserved to the UK Parliament and handled by the Home Office. Provision of Wi-Fi is not included as a requirement in the Home Office asylum accommodation contract with Mears Group. Scottish Ministers have repeatedly pressed the Home Office to include consideration of digital access as part of asylum support provision.

As part of efforts to ensure everyone living in our communities could access the support they need, the Scottish Government provided over £550,000 to third sector organisations for projects supporting people subject to No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) including people seeking asylum during the pandemic. The projects supported through Immediate Priority funding focused on basic needs, including digital access.

As advised in the answer to question S6W-02445 on 13 September 2021, the Scottish Government has committed to extend the Connecting Scotland programme over the course of this Parliament to reach a total of 300,000 people. Work is underway to scope the future service, including how best to reach priority groups who we know are most likely to be digitally excluded, including refugees and asylum seekers.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .

We have set out our ambitious plan to remove NHS dental charges in this Parliament. As a first step to delivering this Manifesto Commitment, we introduced on 24 August 2021 changes to abolish dental charges for all young people between 18 and 25 years of age.

There are a present set of arrangements in place to ensure that vulnerable groups in the community are protected. For example, pensioners in receipt of pension credit guarantee credit are automatically entitled to free NHS dental treatment. Others on low incomes may be entitled to full or partial help with health costs under the NHS Low Income Scheme (LIS).

Scotland is the only part of the UK where free examinations are available to NHS patients.

NHS registered patients are entitled to a full range of NHS care and treatment. While dentists are able to offer private care and treatment they must also advise NHS patients of the treatment available to them under NHS arrangements.

Following the publication of the Framework for supporting people through Recovery and Rehabilitation during and after the COVID-19 , the rehabilitation programme has undertaken a significant scoping exercise through a self-assessment tool to understand the current status of rehabilitation services in Scotland, from the perspective of the staff working in them.

The report on the findings ( Rehabilitation Framework Self-Assessment Tool: Analysis of Survey Responses ) was published on 9th December 2021.

The findings from the self-assessment tool, along with demand and capacity data and guidance from the National Advisory Board on Rehabilitation, will inform the development of a national programme of improvement work to deliver a ‘Once for Scotland’ rehabilitation pathway that will ensure everyone who requires rehabilitation will be able to access it.

We will continue to work with NHS Boards, Health and Social Care Partnerships and the third sector to deliver this.

Details (including individual project funding allocations) of the 9 research projects funded through the Chief Scientist Office (CSO) long-term effects of COVID-19 infection call are available from the CSO website Long Covid Call – Chief Scientist Office (scot.nhs.uk) .

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-04072 on 22 November 2021. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .

Data published by Public Health Scotland covering the period 01 January 2020 to 30 September 2021 shows that in NHS Grampian 83.7 % eligible referrals started treatment within the 62 day standard in 2020 and 78.2% in 2021. Representing 1081 of 1,291 referrals in 2020 and 815 of 1,042 referrals in 2021.

Further breakdown of this data can be accessed at Cancer waiting times - 1 July to 30 September 2021 - Cancer waiting times - Publications - Public Health Scotland .

Boards are continuing to prioritise new cancer patients being referred with a suspicion of cancer - this is closely monitored through weekly performance meetings with officials and reflected in Boards’ Remobilisation Plans.

A refresh of the Framework for Effective Cancer Management is underway and will support clinicians and NHS managers to drive improvements in cancer pathways, providing Health Boards with the tools to effectively manage cancer patients and ultimately recover waiting times.

£10 million of funding has been directed to support cancer waiting times improvements in NHS Scotland across 2021-22, including up-skilling nurses and investing in diagnostic tests to extended working days and weekend working, to increase capacity and see/treat cancer patients as timely as possible. NHS Grampian received £974,000 as a share of the funding.

Prioritisation within the Scottish Government’s COVID-19 vaccination programme is based upon the clinical risk of developing severe disease with COVID-19. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) advises on clinical prioritisation for vaccination. Priority groups 1-9 incorporate the highest clinical risk groups and each group cohort is invited to receive vaccination accordingly.

As per guidance outlined within the Green Book, Chapter 14a, children and young people aged 12-15 years with poorly controlled asthma that requires continuous or repeated use of systemic steroids or with previous exacerbations requiring hospital admission, are included as a high risk group within chronic respiratory disease.

For full details please see p19-23: COVID-19: the green book, chapter 14a - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) .

The information requested could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

The information requested could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

The Scottish Government continues to closely monitor all emerging evidence on the effectiveness of COVID-19 treatments and their clinical effectiveness. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is now assessing Paxlovid’s safety and effectiveness, and I cautiously welcome analysis of the final clinical trial results from Pfizer (which are yet to be published or verified) which show that Paxlovid cuts the risk of hospitalisation or death by approximately 89% in high risk, non-hospitalised adult patients with mild-to-moderate COVID-19. If approved by the MHRA, this will represent another significant pharmaceutical option in our response to COVID-19.

On 20th October, the UK Government announced that 250,000 treatment courses of Paxlovid had been ordered, pending regulatory approval. On 22nd December, the UK Government announced that a further 2.5 million treatment courses had been ordered as part of efforts to reduce the impact of COVID-19 and the Omicron variant across the UK. If authorised by the MHRA, the intention is to initially deploy antivirals such as Paxlovid to individuals through a UK-wide national study, funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). The University of Oxford has been selected to lead the study . This will enable collection of additional data to address limitations in the company-sponsored trials, for example the effectiveness of the treatments in vaccinated patients, as participants in the company trials were unvaccinated.