- Asked by: Neil Findlay, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 26 May 2020
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Current Status:
Answered by Jeane Freeman on 2 July 2020
To ask the Scottish Government for what reasons the majority of delayed discharges from hospital in the period up to March 2020 arose, and what its position is on whether a lack of care home or care at home capacity or whether funding provided to local authorities and integration joint boards was insufficient were factors.
Answer
Information on the reason for delays is available in the monthly delayed discharge census, published by Public Health Scotland. The April census records 138 (22%)delays awaiting completion of care arrangements to go home, and 127 (21%) delays awaiting a care home place. There were also 148 (34%) patients delayed who were awaiting the appointment of a Guardian by the courts, and 60 delays (10%) with highly complex needs. There were no delays awaiting funding.
In comparison, in January 598 (36%) patients were delayed awaiting completion of care arrangements, 347 (21%) delays were awaiting a care home place, and 336 (20%) were delayed awaiting a social care assessment. There were also 210 (13%) patients delayed awaiting the appointment of a Guardian, and 78 (10%)delays with highly complex needs. There were 30 delays awaiting funding.
- Asked by: Neil Findlay, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 21 May 2020
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Current Status:
Answered by Jeane Freeman on 2 July 2020
To ask the Scottish Government what the average cost per week is to keep a person in a care home, broken down by (a) NHS board and (b) integration joint board area.
Answer
Since 2006, a National Care Home Contract has been in place, which defines the terms of local authority (publicly) funded placements into private or voluntary sector care homes across Scotland.
The information requested in not available broken down by NHS Board or Integration Joint Board. However, the National Care Home Census, published by Public Health Scotland includes details of the average gross weekly charge for long stay residents in care Homes for older people in Scotland, with and without Nursing Care, by source of funding. This information can be found at:
https://beta.isdscotland.org/find-publications-and-data/health-and-social-care/social-and-community-care/care-home-census-for-adults-in-scotland/ .
Furthermore, agreement on the National Care Home contract for 2020-21 was reached between local government and Scottish Care - this has seen a 3.5% increase in the rate.
From 6 April 2020 the 2020-21 standard rates for publicly funded service users are:
? £714.90 a week for nursing care
? £614.07 a week for residential care
- Asked by: Neil Findlay, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 31 March 2020
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Current Status:
Answered by Jeane Freeman on 2 July 2020
To ask the Scottish Government how many COVID-19 testing kits the NHS has had in stock on each day since 1 February 2020.
Answer
Sample collection kits at the start of the outbreak were stocked at a Health Board Level and National Services Scotland do not have a daily total of these going back to 1 February 2020. Since 1 February 2020, there have been no reported shortages with Health Boards not having supply of sample collection kits. National Services Scotland have ordered over 2.5 million swabs to support testing for Covid-19 and have currently established a buffer stock of over 450,000 kits.
Please find summarised the number of kits received and issued since 17 April 2020 to 19 June 2020. We do not have daily figures for before the 17 April 2020.
Total number of tests in the National Distribution Centre as of 19 June 2020 - 551,000
Number of sample kits pushed out by National Distribution Centre as of 19 June 2020- 628,250
Total Number of tests as of 16 June 2020 – 180,000
NHS Scotland VTM swab kit stock position of both the National Distribution Centre and Health Boards (the number for Health Boards is calculated via the National Distribution Centre pushed quantity minus total tests performed) as of 18 June 2020 - 999,250
- Asked by: Neil Findlay, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 April 2020
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Current Status:
Answered by Jeane Freeman on 2 July 2020
To ask the Scottish Government how many patients who were previously categorised as delayed discharge patients have been discharged from hospital to make way for coronavirus capacity, and how many of them have been discharged (a) with and (b) without a care package in place.
Answer
All delayed discharge patients will have required some form of care after discharge, either in their own home, care home or other community setting. Using a Home First Discharge to Assess approach many partnerships are discharging people for further rehabilitation and on-going assessment at home, or in a more homely setting. This approach provides a much better outcome for the individual since the assessment is undertaken in a more realistic living setting than a hospital ward.
Delayed discharge management information is now being published regularly on the Scottish Government website at https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-daily-data-for-scotland/ .
- Asked by: Neil Findlay, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 15 June 2020
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Current Status:
Answered by Graeme Dey on 29 June 2020
To ask the Scottish Government whether calls via video platforms such as Zoom, MS Teams and FaceTime are covered by the terms of the Lobbying (Scotland) Act 2016.
Answer
It is for the Parliament rather than the Government to determine what activities require to be registered under the terms of the Lobbying (Scotland) Act 2016. Any such enquiries should be directed to the Lobbying Register Team in the Parliament.
- Asked by: Neil Findlay, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 11 June 2020
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Current Status:
Answered by Jeane Freeman on 26 June 2020
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-29478 by Jeane Freeman on 10 June 2020, whether it will provide the information that was requested regarding how many people in care homes have died from COVID-19 or had COVID-19 mentioned on their death certificate, and for what reason it did not provide this information in its answer.
Answer
The information requested is publicly available from National Records of Scotland in their weekly statistics publication which includes figures for the number of deaths associated with COVID-19 that occurred in a care home.
https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/covid19stats
The most recent NRS figures available, published on 10th June, report that as at 7 June, a total of 1,861 deaths were registered in Scotland, where COVID-19 was mentioned of the death certificate and occurred in a care home.
Weekly figures for the number of deaths associated with COVID-19 that occurred in a care homes in 2020 can be found on the NRS website in the weekly statistics publication supplementary tables in Table 1: 'Weekly provisional figures on deaths registered where coronavirus (COVID-19) was mentioned on the death certificate in Scotland' .
- Asked by: Neil Findlay, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 June 2020
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Current Status:
Answered by Jeane Freeman on 26 June 2020
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-29044 by Jeane Freeman on 10 June 2020, whether it will provided the information requested regarding for what reason it did not support the testing of asymptomatic NHS, care home and home care staff, given that this policy was adopted prior to the establishment of its COVID-19 advisory committee, and on whose advice its policy was based.
Answer
Decisions undertaken on how best to respond to COVID-19 are continually assessed against the evidence and as this evolves, so too does our response.
The Scottish Government has and will continue to receive expert scientific advice, including on testing from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE). Minutes from SAGE meetings were made publicly available on 29 th May 2020:
https://www.gov.uk/search/transparency-and-freedom-of-information-releases?organisations%5B%5D=scientific-advisory-group-for-emergencies&parent=scientific-advisory-group-for-emergencies
- Asked by: Neil Findlay, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 09 June 2020
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Current Status:
Answered by Jeane Freeman on 26 June 2020
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-28949 by Jeane Freeman on 8 June 2020, what scientific advice it was given prior to 1 February 2020 specifically regarding testing for COVID-19, and for what reason it did not provide this specific information in its answer.
Answer
The Scottish Government received expert scientific advice, including on testing for COVID-19 from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) which met twice in January. Minutes from SAGE meetings were made publicly available on 29th May 2020:
https://www.gov.uk/search/transparency-and-freedom-of-information-releases?organisations%5B%5D=scientific-advisory-group-for-emergencies&parent=scientific-advisory-group-for-emergencies .
Prior to the outbreak of COVID-19, the Scottish Government received expert health protection and public health advice from a range of scientific experts including the Chief Medical Officer, Public Health Scotland, the Scottish Health Protection Network, NERVTAG and the Advisory Committee of Dangerous Pathogens.
We will continue to be guided the best scientific advice and expertise in relation to all aspects of health protection and public health.
- Asked by: Neil Findlay, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 11 May 2020
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Current Status:
Answered by Jeane Freeman on 25 June 2020
To ask the Scottish Government on what basis the First Minister made the statement in the Parliament on 24 March 2020 that "To be blunt, based on what I have been told, the UK, and Scotland within it, probably has the greatest testing capacity of any country in the world proportionately, per head of population" (Official Report, c. 28).
Answer
Testing capacity fluctuates on a daily basis, any comparisons on testing capacity between countries is a single point in time assessment based on information available at that time.
- Asked by: Neil Findlay, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 31 March 2020
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Current Status:
Answered by Jeane Freeman on 25 June 2020
To ask the Scottish Government, in terms of the number of tests for COVID-19 that can be carried out and assessed each day, how this capacity has changed each month since January 2020.
Answer
Monthly capacity figures for the NHS testing service in Scotland are available from 10 February until 16 June, as follows:
Feb 10 -28 (inclusive): 7000
March 38918
April 82311
May 180272
