Chamber and committees

In management information collated on 3 March 2021, a total of 3066 staff capable of undertaking contact tracing activity, were available for deployment across NHS Scotland territorial boards and the National Contact Tracing Centre run by National Services Scotland (NSS). A summary of this information, broken down by health board, is set out in the following table. The Scottish Government does not hold data centrally on the proportion of these staff who are newly recruited or redeployed; the recruitment and deployment of staff is a matter for the board.

Scottish Government keep contact tracing capacity under active review, in line with modelling undertaken by Public Health Scotland, with all boards required to maintain a total national capacity commensurate with demand. Test and Protect has successfully operated throughout Autumn and Winter despite the increased volume of cases, including during and after the Festive Period. We continue to meet demand within the system, deploying around 1000 staff per day as required.

The National Contact Tracing Centre contracted with the private sector to provide staff to temporarily augment existing NHS capacity. NSS oversee training and performance of staff to ensure quality is maintained. External partners currently account for less than 30% of the trained contact tracing workforce and are deployed as required. The significant majority of contact tracing staff on any given day are NHS employees. All contact tracing in Scotland is, and will remain NHS led.

The current contracts will end this month and there will be a significant reduction in the use of the private sector from April now the NHS workforce is established with over 2000 NHS staff trained and available for deployment. A Framework Agreement has been established from April to provide resource on a flexible basis to build resilience during peaks in demand for Contact Tracing services.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-35171 on 11 March 2021. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation recommendation continues to be that an age-based approach is the best way to address the risk of severe illness and mortality. This simple approach helps us to do that as quickly as possible. Calling people forward in age cohorts is operationally very simple and this process has already worked well during the earlier stages of the programme. This approach will be taken by the 4 Nations across the UK and we will continue to vaccinate as quickly as supplies allow.

The JCVI has published its recommendations for vaccination of the remainder of the adult population, beyond cohorts 1 to 9. In light of these recommendations, and once we have offered vaccination to the main priority groups, we will continue to follow their advice by inviting adults under 50 who have not received the vaccine in age cohort. These are as follows:

• All those aged 40-49 years
• All those aged 30-39 years
• All those aged 18-29 years

This advice by the JCVI is supported by the evidence that the risk of hospitalisation and critical care admission with COVID-19 increases with age. Those at highest risk of hospitalisation outside of cohorts 1-9 are those aged 40-49 years.

We will be issuing a communication to people who do not attend their appointment, in the hope that they will take up a new vaccination appointment. We have also made it clear on NHS Inform and within the follow-up invite, that should people wish to receive a vaccination this can be done by contacting the helpline on 0800 030 8013, where an appointment can be made on their behalf.

The Scottish Government follows the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) Guidance in the planning of vaccine delivery. This evidence based guidance advises that the single greatest risk of mortality from COVID-19 is increasing age, and that the risk increases exponentially with age. Additionally the committee considers frontline health and social care workers who provide direct care to vulnerable people a high priority for vaccination.

The JCVI priority lists represents 90% of the preventable mortality from COVID-19 in Scotland and throughout the delivery of the vaccination programme we are guided by the clinical expertise of the JCVI, the MHRA, and our own senior clinical advisers.

To save lives it is essential that vaccinations are given to the first priority groups as set by the JCVI, these being residents in a care home for older adults and their carers, people over the age of 80, and frontline health and social care workers.

Our plans will remain flexible and we will continue to adjust these based on the guidance provided by JCVI.

JCVI has provided a definition of clinically vulnerable, which is separate from clinically extremely vulnerable, but with some overlap. Under the JCVI definition, those with severe asthma are considered to be clinically vulnerable.

Individuals who are defined as clinically extremely vulnerable will have been vaccinated as part of group 4. JCVI priority group 4 includes all those 70 years of age and over, and clinically extremely vulnerable individuals.

We are working to ensure everyone is fully informed regarding COVID-19 vaccinations. Our digital and social media campaigns began in January, alongside an outdoors advertising campaign and a TV and radio campaign.

The Scottish COVID-19 Vaccination Helpline (0800 030 8013) is now open, to make sure that anyone who thinks they are eligible and hasn’t received an invitation/has been missed, can arrange an appointment to have one.

The Scottish Government is also working with faith based, third sector and community groups to reach out to more people from deprived communities to increase the vaccine uptake. This includes BEMIS and Scottish Refugee Council, to reach people with no recourse to public funds (NRPF), including both new entrants into Scotland and people who have lived and worked in the UK for many years.

The vaccination work builds on the other coronavirus messaging aimed at these individuals, which has included highlighting the self-isolation funding available to eligible individuals with NRPF.

We have put in place financial and practical support to ensure all parts of our community have the knowledge and confidence to participate in this vaccination programme and to remove any practical barriers.

We are working to ensure everyone is fully informed regarding COVID-19 vaccinations. Our digital and social media campaigns began in January, alongside an outdoors advertising campaign and a TV and radio campaign. We have translated our Test and Protect door drop information into a wide range of languages and accessible formats, to reach out to communities.

The Scottish COVID-19 Vaccination Helpline (0800 030 8013) is now open, to make sure that anyone who thinks they are eligible and hasn’t received an invitation/has been missed, can arrange an appointment to have one.

The Scottish Government is also working with faith based, third sector and community groups to reach out to more people from deprived communities to increase the vaccine uptake. This includes BEMIS and Scottish Refugee Council, to reach people with no recourse to public funds (NRPF), including both new entrants into Scotland and people who have lived and worked in the UK for many years.

The vaccination work builds on the other coronavirus messaging aimed at these individuals, which has included highlighting the self-isolation funding available to eligible individuals with NRPF.

We have put in place financial and practical support to ensure all parts of our community have the knowledge and confidence to participate in this vaccination programme and to remove any practical barriers.

We understand that attending large vaccination centres will not be possible for everyone and we are working closely with our partners to ensure we are doing all we can to support everyone accessing vaccines in the weeks ahead.

Our top priority is to vaccinate as many people as we can as quickly as possible, starting with those at the highest clinical risk.

To achieve this, the Scottish Government is working to ensure everyone is fully informed and supported on COVID-19 vaccinations to encourage high uptake. Some of our actions include:

Our digital and social media campaigns which went live on January 4th, as well as a national door drop which arrived with households on the same week. Our outdoors campaign began on the 11th of January.

Our TV and radio campaigns began on the week starting the 21st of January.

The Scottish COVID-19 Vaccination Helpline (0800 030 8013) was also set up and open to make sure those who are called forward for the vaccine can get the information they need.

Our marketing and insights work will look at whether we need additional ways to promote the protection of being vaccinated to younger age groups.

We understand the anxiety around the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation’s (JCVI) criteria of only severe and profound learning disabilities being eligible for vaccination during group 6.

(a) We have now made the decision to expand group 6 of the JCVI priority list. This now means that anyone with a learning/intellectual disability living in Scotland is eligible for vaccination during group 6. This does not include people with learning difficulties such as dyslexia or ADHD.

NHS Boards are already aware of this change through our operational vaccination groups, however on 24th February the Chief Medical Officer and Chief Nursing Officer additionally wrote to NHS Boards Chief Officers and Health And Social Care Partnerships highlighting the change and offering the expertise of local learning disability nurses in providing reasonable adjustments for the COVID-19 Immunisation programme.

We have worked with Public Health Scotland in the identification exercise to make sure both current and historic records are checked to ensure we capture everyone who is eligible. Even for individuals who do not have any contact with their GP, their historic diagnosis will have been recorded and they will therefore be invited for vaccination. Individuals who require it can also request an alternative venue through the national booking portal or helpline (0800 030 8013), and can be accompanied by a carer.

(b) The JCVI considers staff in care homes for adults with learning disabilities as part of the category of frontline health and social care workers providing direct care to vulnerable people. They are a high priority for vaccination, and eligible now, if they have not been vaccinated already, as part of group 2.

We do not have this level of detail from the current vaccination rollout at the moment. We are working closely with Public Health Scotland to evaluate the current data, including take-up of the vaccine by ethnicity and Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) quintile.

The Scottish Government is working with faith based, third sector and community groups to reach out to more people to increase the vaccine uptake and to provide as much information as possible so that all parts of our community have the knowledge and confidence to participate in this programme.