Chamber and committees

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 99% of the preventable mortality in the United Kingdom from COVID-19 and throughout the delivery of the vaccination programme we will be guided by the clinical expertise of the JCVI, the MHRA, and our own senior clinical advisers.

At this stage in the vaccination programme every vaccine given to one of these groups would be one less vaccine to an at-risk individual.

Decisions to prioritise one population group over another are not taken lightly, nor are they straightforward. That is why our prioritisation decisions are guided by the independent expert advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.

We are adhering to the priority list devised by the JCVI which has been designed to target those at greatest risk from this virus and is estimated to address over 90 per cent of preventable mortality from the virus in Scotland. This is the priority rollout all nations of the UK are working towards and it is really important that we adhere to these lists in order to avoid more lives being lost.

We have been clear we expect health boards to minimise wasted doses of vaccine, and have provided them with best practice advice on how to achieve this.

Some wastage is unavoidable for a variety of reasons based on the characteristics of the vaccine, logistical issues with cold chain supply, storage failure and/or specific clinical situations such as a breakout of COVID-19 in a care home. To date, our latest management information indicates a wastage rate of around only 1.8% - well below our planning assumption of 5%, which is a precautionary approach for worst case scenarios and in line with global best practice.

Any wastage is reviewed to ensure any preventable loss is avoided in the future. We will continue to monitor wastage rates and regularly report back.

A waste management tool is now in place to learn why waste is arising so that solutions can be put in place to minimise waste. It will also provide the ability to extract data on the number of doses not able to be used for various reasons. On the 9 February, NHS Lothian shared online the opportunity for staff who had not yet received a first or second dose of the Pfizer vaccine to attend as the adverse weather meant appointments were available at short notice. We are pleased to see Boards acting pragmatically to ensure we adhere to the JCVI priority list whilst continuing to minimise vaccine waste.

We are working to ensure everyone is fully informed regarding COVID-19 vaccinations. A national door drop arrived with households on the week starting January 4th, as well as our digital and social media campaigns, which went live on this date.

Our outdoors advertising campaign Started from 11th of January and a TV and radio campaign began on January the 21st.

The Scottish COVID-19 Vaccination Helpline (0800 030 8013) is now open, to make sure those who are called forward for the vaccine can get the information they need.

The Scottish Government is provided with the supply forecasts from the NHS NSS on a weekly basis which are refined each week, which can make forward operational planning challenging. These reports forecast up to 4 weeks in advance. The UK vaccines taskforce provides a longer range forecast but this is subject to change.

The Scottish Government has been very clear from day one that the pace of our national vaccine programme is dependent on vaccine supply and delivery timescales and we continue to work closely across the 4 nations to ensure this is as smooth as possible.

We recognise the importance of providing vaccinators with the training and support they require to undertake their role effectively.

Our approach builds on the Green Book on immunisation against infectious disease and aligns with the approach taken by Public Health England.

For individuals who are experienced active vaccinators, training need only cover the specific characteristics of COVID-19 vaccinations.

Where an individual is returning to vaccinations after being inactive for a period of time, their training requirements will be informed by a short self-assessment.

Individuals with no experience as vaccinators will be required to undertake core vaccination training and will require clinical supervision when administering vaccine until confident and competent.

The UK Government has awarded a contract enabling the call-off of security services in respect of the managed isolation programme, including in Scotland. The company appointed through that contract to provide security services in Scotland is G4S. The costs of the security services provided are met by the UK Government, with no payment passing directly from guests in the managed isolation programme to G4S.

We will keep these rules under regular review alongside the other international travel restrictions. Ministers must review the need for restrictions imposed under the Health Protection (Coronavirus) (International Travel) (Scotland) Regulations 2020 at least once every 28 days. The results of these reviews are reported to Parliament.

New and comprehensive quarantine rules are essential to prevent new variants from entering the country and undermining the roll out of the vaccination programme. Restricting national and international travel allow us to lower the risk of new variants undermining our vaccination programme.

Any decision on ending the policy of managed isolation will be contingent on the epidemiological data and wider evidence about the rollout and success of our vaccination programme. Such a decision will be considered, in due course, in the context of a refreshed strategic approach to suppressing the virus.

We are actively working with the UK Government to ensure financial support can be provided to eligible travellers. The UK system that enables travellers to book managed isolation facilities and pay associated fees has been set up at pace and changes need to be made to that UK system in order to waive fees in certain cases. We have asked for those changes to be made urgently and are waiting for this to be actioned. This support will be available as soon possible.

The Scottish Government has published its COVID-19 vaccination policy in its Deployment Plan which gives background to the decisions made, and different models. It also sets out how we will work as fast as supplies allow to vaccinate everyone over the age of 18 and those aged 16 and 17 who are frontline health and social care workers, young carers or have underlying health conditions in Scotland – estimated to be around 4.5 million people.