Chamber and committees

The identification, assessment and management of people with long-term effects of COVID-19 in Scotland is guided by the recommendations of an evidence-based UK-wide clinical guideline developed by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) and the Royal College of GPs (RCGP).

This is underpinned by the full range of NHS services – including primary care teams and community-based rehabilitation services with referrals to secondary care where necessary.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-07911 on 26 April 2022. 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

The Scottish Government notes the position from the British Social Attitudes survey (BSA) which asks members of the public to rate how satisfied they are with “the way in which the NHS runs nowadays”.

We recognise that the NHS has been under significant pressure in recent years, in particular due to pressures arising from COVID-19.

The ongoing impact of addressing the COVID-19 pandemic has meant that many health services had to be suspended or reduced in scope and scale. This has affected almost all aspects of NHS planned care and as a result of this there are many people who are waiting longer for the care they need. Addressing the backlog of care, while continuing to meet the ongoing urgent health and care needs of the country, is a top priority for the Scottish Government.

We continue to prioritise investment in our NHS to support remobilisation and reform and to deliver world-class, sustainable services for the whole of Scotland. This is underlined by our latest Budget which provides £18 billion for Health and Social Care and takes forward our commitment to increase spending on the NHS in Scotland by at least 20% over the course of this parliament.

As part of our 100 days commitments, we published an NHS Recovery Plan in August 2021 which commits more than £1 billion of targeted investment for the recovery and renewal of our health service. This sets out our plans and key ambitions to address the backlogs of care by March 2026, which includes supporting an increase in capacity to deliver inpatient and day case procedures, outpatient activity, and diagnostics, which will be supported by the implementation of sustainable improvements and new models of care.

Alongside this, NHS Scotland staffing levels are at a record high and have increased for ten consecutive years. However, we recognise that our NHS has experienced unprecedented pressures since the Covid-19 pandemic. Our £300m of new support to help services deal with system pressures over recent months along with the £1bn-backed NHS Recovery Plan introduced a range of direct workforce investments and new measures to enhance Boards’ capacity for both domestic and international recruitment. Various commitments from these plans, such as the recruitment of 1,000 additional healthcare support workers, have already been achieved. We are continuing to implement vital workforce investments at speed.

In terms of the wider situation in Scotland, the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey (SSAS) asks similar, but not identical, questions to the BSA and is due to report in Autumn this year. The SSAS did not run in 2020 due to COVID restrictions and was run in 2021 as a telephone survey which means that results for the 2021 SSAS may not be directly comparable with the previous SSAS findings from 2019.

Other sources reporting information of this kind are the Scottish Household Survey (SHS) and the Health and Care Experience survey (HACE).

The most recent Scottish Household Survey asked participants to rate satisfaction with “local health services”. Whilst this question does not exclusively focus on the NHS, satisfaction was generally positive in Scotland with around 88% of those surveyed reporting they were satisfied with the quality of local health services in 2020. Also from the SHS, 93% of adults trusted “the Health System”, making it the institution that adults were most likely to express trust in. Similarly to the SSAS, the SHS ran in 2020 as a telephone survey, meaning that results for 2020 may not be directly comparable with previous SHS findings.

Scottish Household Survey data collection is ongoing, with 2022 data currently being collected. 2021 data is being processed and is due to be published later in the year.

https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-household-survey-2020-telephone-survey-key-findings/

The Health and Care Experience survey (HACE) asks people to rate their experience of using Health and Care services in Scotland which is not the same as asking about people’s attitudes towards health and care services. Similar to the SSAS, the HACE was last run in 2019 with results published in October 2020. The next set of results from the 2021-22 HACE survey will be published in May 2022.

https://www.gov.scot/publications/health-care-experience-survey-2019-20/

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-07532 on 19 April 2022. 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-questionsand-answers

In line with the Test and Protect Transition Plan, testing changed on Scotland on 18 April.

Thanks to vaccination coverage and new Covid treatments, most people no longer need to test when they don’t have COVID-19 symptoms. Lateral flow device (LFD) tests are now being used in a targeted way to support clinical care and protect high risk settings.

Up until the end of April 2022, LFD tests can be ordered online or by phoning 119 for:

• anyone eligible for Covid treatments,
• an unpaid carer,
• anyone visiting a hospital or care home,
• a contact of a positive case and are fully vaccinated, or,
• a positive case who is self-isolating and are eligible to end self-isolation early (take an LFD test from day 6 as advised in guidance for ending self-isolation early).

From the 1 May LFD tests can be ordered online or by phoning 119 for:

• anyone eligible for Covid treatments,
• an unpaid carer, or
• anyone visiting a hospital or care home,

PCR testing for those with symptoms remains available until the Test and Protect transition period ends on 30 April.

The successful implementation of the Health and Care (Staffing) (Scotland) Act 2019 is dependent on the engagement of clinical staff groups and the Health Board managers firstly in contributing to the development of the 2019 Act’s Guidance and subsequently in understanding and applying the relevant provisions to their services. The NHS’s main focus has been prioritising, managing and providing services throughout the pandemic. The movement towards remobilisation is now presenting the opportunity for officials to engage with the relevant stakeholders to coproduce an implementation strategy and timetable which the Government will subsequently publish.

The Scottish Government regularly reviews its plans for public awareness campaigns. We do not intend to run a public awareness campaign for deep vein thrombosis at this time.

Pay is an ongoing issue for Agenda for Change trade unions and the position for 2022-23 has been discussed regularly in the meetings I have had with health trade unions, as well as at the Scottish Terms and Conditions Committee, and in meetings involving Scottish Government officials.

Nine projects were funded through the Chief Scientist Office Long-term effects of COVID-19 funding call Long Covid Call – Chief Scientist Office (scot.nhs.uk)

6 month progress reports have been received for all 9 projects. On 31 March 2022 the Chief Scientist Office hosted a virtual symposium at which the lead investigators of each of the 9 projects presented the results obtained to date.

In line with Chief Scientist Office policy final project reports will be published on the CSO website.

The Scottish Government fund a core module in the long running Scottish Social Attitudes Survey, which includes questions on public attitudes to the health service. Fieldwork for the most recent survey was carried out from 21 October 2021 to end March 2022 and the final report will be published in late 2022. Due to COVID restrictions, the survey was not run in 2020. The last published findings are from 2019 ( https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-social-attitudes-2019-attitudes-government-political-engagement/ )

Changes in methodology necessitated by the COVID restrictions unfortunately mean that the 2021 data may not be directly comparable with previous years. The exact timing, methodology and content of the next iteration is currently being discussed.

The Scottish Household Survey (SHS) which runs annually asks participants how satisfied or dissatisfied they are with local health services, which contribute to understanding public attitudes to the NHS and social care specifically. Results from the most recent SHS were published in January 2022. As with the SSAS, due to the change to a telephone survey for 2021, the latest data may not be comparable with previous years:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-household-survey-2020-telephone-survey-key-findings/

SHS data collection is ongoing, with 2022 data currently being collected. 2021 data is being processed and is due to be published later in the year.