Chamber and committees

The ophthalmic surgeon workforce capacity has been largely unaffected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In line with guidance issued by the Royal College of Ophthalmologists, a risk stratification process has been introduced to ensure that patients at most risk of permanent sight loss are prioritised for treatment.  In addition, we continue to explore all options to increase the number of surgical procedures that can be safely undertaken including reviewing the current capacity and available workforce to deliver treatments.

NHS Scotland is making every effort to undertake a higher volume of cataract surgery, which has continued throughout the pandemic.  The new eye centre at the NHS Golden Jubilee has been utilised and will continue to provide support throughout 2021-22 within the necessary safe working parameters.

The Scottish Government is working collaboratively with NHS Scotland to identify all available additional capacity to support higher volume cataract surgery.

As part of the process of remobilising NHS services, discussions are ongoing with the NHS Golden Jubilee to utilise all their theatre capacity with the appropriate physical distancing and infection control measures in place. To support this the NHS Golden Jubilee is planning to undertake around 12,000 cataracts operations during the next financial year.

To support cataract activity an additional £3 million was made available during 2020-21 to support out-patient reviews of hospital eye services’ patients.  This enabled some community optometrists, who are skilled and appropriately equipped, to share the care of lower risk patients who would not otherwise be reviewed.

While the Scottish Government has not carried out any specific assessment on the potential risk posed to patients’ physical and mental health when they do not receive cataract surgery within 18 weeks of referral, we do fully appreciate the difficulty and anxiety delays can cause.

Work is underway to reduce waiting times and delays with patients being risk stratified on a continual basis ensuring that those patients with sight-threatening conditions are given priority. Where possible, patients are being managed remotely through Attend Anywhere/Near Me software, and telephone calls. These virtual clinics are also being used to safely manage patients who require assessments through automated examinations with the results reviewed by medical teams. Any patient who is concerned about their condition also has the option to contact their optometrist.

The Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme main voucher – worth up to £5,000 – has been specifically designed to allow vouchers in a community to be combined to extend available funding, ensuring co-ordinated, comprehensive areas of superfast coverage where possible. Community Fibre Partnerships are a commercial offering from Openreach and, as a registered supplier, SBVS vouchers can be used by communities to help secure a Community Fibre Partnership solution.

Policy relating to cyber-security, like telecommunications more broadly, remains reserved to the UK Government. The removal of Huawei equipment from commercial mobile networks is the responsibility of mobile network operators and the Scottish Government is not sighted on their plans to meet the UK Government mandate.

When bidding for the R100 contracts, suppliers submitted bids that maximised coverage with the funding available. Through the remodelling exercise, we have again asked BT to maximise coverage but are separately exploring the possibility of securing further funding to flip premises. We anticipate that, following the remodelling exercise, we will see an even greater proportion of FTTP coverage in the North lot.

The upgrading of the East Coast Main Line between Aberdeen and Dundee is currently at the option selection stage and will deliver £200m of enhancements by 2026, in line with the Ministerial commitment.

In addition decarbonisation of this route is at an early stage of development.

As was the case with the South and Central R100 contracts, the Scottish Government is providing BT with an updated intervention area (the list of addresses eligible for public sector subsidy) for the North which we have recently consulted upon.

We have committed to provide Openreach with the finalised speed and coverage template (or SCT) no later than 31 March 2021 to allow them to finalise their coverage footprint. We expect that this remodelling exercise will conclude in April/May 2021, after which it will be subject to rigorous review through our own governance and assurance structures, and those of Building Digital UK (BDUK).

We expect the full picture across the North lot contract area to be available by Summer 2021. Our online address checker will then be updated to reflect this.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on the incremental costs associated with flipping premises from FTTC to FTTP. This is because these costs are derived from commercial delivery models which vary by supplier and between premises.

The Scottish Government is currently considering the role that a vaccination certificate/passport may have. However, this work is still ongoing and a final decision has not been reached on whether this will be introduced.

A key factor in the Scottish Government’s decision will be the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines, their impact on transmission and the length of time for which each vaccine provides immunity. There is not enough information available yet.

We continue to monitor all developments in relation to COVID-19, including on the subject of vaccine certification. We continue to contribute to the World Health Organisation Safer Vaccination Programme on vaccine certification. This includes consideration of technical details, ethical and equality issues, and privacy standards. The outcome of those discussions will guide our work in this area.

A vaccination certificate could play a valuable role but there are various issues to work through, not least the significant equalities issues with allowing freedoms only to those vaccinated. Work, on a 4 nations basis, has started to scope and develop a technical solution to allow secure, authenticated access to Covid vaccination status.

This is to ensure technology is not the limiting factor should the work underway indicate it would be appropriate to introduce certification at the right time.

The Scottish Government’s main focus remains on our national vaccine programme and ensuring that this is rolled out as quickly and effectively as possible.