Chamber and committees

Returning Officers are responsible for delivering elections - including the setting up of polling stations. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic they will seek to ensure that voters can vote safely, taking into account public health advice.

The Electoral Management Board for Scotland (EMB) provides support and guidance to Returning Officers on the running of elections, to give results in which voters can have confidence. Ahead of the Local Government by-elections in October and November 2020, the EMB produced guidance on administering polls under pandemic conditions. This guidance was developed with input from Public Health Scotland.

To minimise potential for infection from surfaces, the guidance recommended that Returning Officers should make available a supply of pencils for use by voters, so that each has a fresh pencil, and should encourage voters to bring their own pencil or pen if they wish. During the by-elections, some Returning Officers gave pencils away to voters, while others collected single-use pencils for cleaning and re-use at a later occasion.

The Electoral Commission has produced supplementary guidance for the 2021 Scottish Parliament Election, which aligns with the guidance issued by the EMB. The Commission advises that Returning Officers keep a spare stock of single use or cleaned pencils available should voters decide not to bring their own pen or pencil.

Our priority throughout the pandemic has been to save lives and we have taken firm actions to protect care home staff and residents. Discharge decisions for individual patients are made by clinicians and multi-disciplinary teams based on the patient's needs and if someone is discharged to a care home it is because that has been assessed as the best place to meet their needs. There has never been guidance or policy to actively move patients unwell with Covid-19 into care homes.

Prior to the Sunday Post publishing their FOI, neither Scottish Ministers nor Government officials had information on the results of Covid-19 tests prior to discharge, or to where these patients were discharged. The Cabinet Secretary commissioned Public Health Scotland to enable us to more fully and consistently understand how many people were assessed as being discharged with a recent positive test result, and the rationales that were in place for such a discharge. This report was published on 28 October and is available here: https://beta.isdscotland.org/search-results/?keywords=Discharges+from+NHSScotland+hospitals+to+care+homes+28+October+2020 .

Since 1 March 2020, the Scottish Government has issued 17 news releases on behalf of the Minister for Public Health, Sport and Wellbeing and seven news releases on behalf of the Minister for Older People and Equalities.

No. The duty on health boards under section 28 of the Carers (Scotland) Act 2016 to involve unpaid carers of those being discharged from hospital has remained in place throughout the pandemic.

The Scottish Government has worked with NHS Education for Scotland and the Scottish Social Services Council to update and promote the Equal Partners in Care e-learning resource which supports health and care professionals to identify and support unpaid carers. The resource covers the duty at section 28 and is open to all to use here: Equal Partners in Care | Turas | Learn (nhs.scot)

The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 applies to all employers in the UK without exception. Enforcement of this legislation is the statutory responsibility of the Health and Safety Executive.

Test and Protect has now been operating for more than six months and is performing well – since its launch on 28 May, Test and Protect has offered testing to all symptomatic individuals to identify positive cases and traced close contacts of positive cases via a contract tracing service based in local health protection teams, with support provided at a national level in the form of the National Contact Tracing Centre. Test and Protect attempts to phone all positive cases, and close contacts are informed by phone or SMS. The most recent data, published by Public Health Scotland on 09 December, shows that we have successfully contacted 95% of positive cases, and 97% of identified close contacts, since Test and Protect’s Case Management System went live on 22 June.

The Scottish Government, in partnership with Local Authorities, has offered a support package to enable people to self-isolate and limit the spread of the virus. The Self-Isolation Support Grant of £500 is also available for people on low incomes who are in receipt of low income benefits and would lose income through self-isolation, if they are asked to self-isolate by contact tracers. Since 07 December this has been extended to be available to parents of a child who is required to self-isolate, if the parent fulfils the other eligibility criteria, and to people who may be eligible for Universal Credit, but have not yet applied.

In Scotland between March and October 2020, there were 4,756 deaths involving COVID-19 1 , of which 727 had a respiratory condition 2 recorded on their death certificate as the main pre-existing condition 3 . This represents 15% of deaths.

1 Deaths where COVID-19 was mentioned on the death certificate either as the underlying cause or a contributory cause.

2 Includes the following respiratory conditions (ICD-10 codes in brackets):

Public Health Scotland is progressing work to improve the systematic recording of information on hospital records to identify when a person is either admitted from or discharged to a care home. PHS are currently testing their IT systems, with the intention that NHS Boards should commence recording and submitting this information in the new year. This information will be submitted to PHS as part of the routine datasets.

Information on the number of Covid-19 positive patients discharged from hospital to care homes between March and May is available in the Public Health Scotland Report Discharges from NHSScotland hospitals to care homes available at https://beta.isdscotland.org/find-publications
-and-data/population-health/covid-19/discharges-from-nhsscotland-hospitals-to-care-homes/ .

Details of clinical consultations and any risk assessments carried out as part of the discharge process did not form part of this report. This information will be contained in individual patient records, held by Health Boards.

Deaths involving COVID (1) where the main pre-existing condition (2) was a respiratory condition (3) Scotland, 2020.

The current training programme, provided by Police Scotland in Sri Lanka, is aimed at improving community policing and gender equality, with all training underpinned by equality and human rights. It is a matter for the Chief Constable of Police Scotland to agree the details of any training programme in Sri Lanka and Scottish Ministers would consider requests for further deployments of officers, taking into consideration a range of issues, including an examination of Human Rights implications.