Chamber and committees

Testing capacity fluctuates on a daily basis, but as at 1 July, the testing capacity of NHS Scotland laboratories, broken down by NHS board, was as follows:

National Records of Scotland (NRS), Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) and Office for National Statistics (ONS) publish statistics on deaths where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate (including suspected COVID-19 deaths).

Due to differences in recording and diagnosis the most accurate figures to use to make comparisons in relation to the number and rate of deaths from Covid in any environment are those for all excess deaths over a particular period. Comparisons should also take account of differences in the demographics of care home residents across the UK.

Excess deaths are the total number of deaths registered in a week in 2020 minus the average number of deaths registered in the same week over the period 2015 to 2019. For all parts of the UK, figures are available for excess deaths from all causes, including Covid-19.

During weeks 11-25 of 2020, excess deaths in care homes in England and Wales have been 83% above the five year average compared to 66% for Scotland.

NRS statistics show Covid-19 deaths in care homes, year-to-date up to 21 June (week 25) as being 47% of Scotland’s deaths from Covid-19. NISRA statistics for this period also show 42% of deaths from Covid-19 in Northern Ireland as being in care homes. The percentage of Covid-19 related deaths occurring in care homes in Scotland is broadly in line with many other European countries.

From 20 March 2020, due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, sexual health services were necessarily limited to urgent and essential care only during lockdown.

Significant efforts have been made to maintain care provision to meet public health priorities such as preventing unplanned pregnancies and onward transmission of sexually transmitted infections and blood borne viruses. In responding to the major challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been significant and rapid service redesign in order to prioritise essential care while protecting patients and staff, with care being provided virtually where possible, including through the use of telephone or video consultations and assessments, postal testing kits and self-test kits.

In order to support the recovery and renewal of sexual health services as we move through the phases out of lockdown, the Scottish Government, following discussions with the Scottish Health Protection Network, has committed to developing an Interim Sexual Health and Blood Borne Viruses Framework. This Interim Framework will take stock of the impacts of COVID-19 on sexual health, and seek to build on the many examples of innovation and best practice developed at this time to transform sexual health services in the future.

The harms caused by the use of benzodiazepines in Scotland is a serious concern, especially as evidence indicates that the number of deaths involving them has increased over recent years. The Drug Deaths Taskforce is focused on ensuring that drug treatment services adapt to meet the specific needs of those individuals who are most at risk in their area by offering treatment and support services that focus on the use of a range of drugs, including benzodiazepines. The Scottish Government committed £20m of additional funding in the 2019 Programme for Government to support the taskforce between 2020-2022.

Furthermore we are also continuing to push the UK Government to commit to regulating the sale of pill press machines that are capable of producing counterfeit benzodiazepines on an industrial scale. I have raised this with UK counterparts on a number of occasions and will be following this up when I next meet with UK Ministers.

The latest information is available on the Public Health Scotland website in Table 5b of the National Drug-Related Deaths Database publication tables at https://beta.isdscotland.org/media/1502/2018-06-12-ndrdd-tables.xlsx .

The data in the table show annual statistics for calendar years from 2009 to 2016 (inclusive).

The data is not currently available. Public Health Scotland have pre-announced that Acute Hospital Activity and SMR01 data to end March 2020, is scheduled for publication in September 2020 and that data for April to June 2020 is scheduled for publication in November 2020.

https://beta.isdscotland.org/forthcoming-publications/

The current license is due to expire at the end of August. The discussion of licence renewal is underway but is commercially sensitive.

The Louisa Jordan has conducted a successful pilot, which has seen 315 patients receive orthopaedic and plastic surgery outpatient consultations since the start of July. Following the successful three-week project by NHS Lanarkshire, plans are now in place to expand the services offered at the hospital and increase the number of patients it can receive daily from health boards across Scotland.

The estimated set up cost is £31 million and there will be additional costs for decommissioning, but there are not known yet and so the overall cost has not yet been finalised. The Scottish Government have committed to publish the breakdown on costs by the end of August 2020.

The Scottish Government has significantly reoriented our work to address the urgent needs that Covid 19 has brought. As part of this, we have continued to work with the Social Isolation and Loneliness National Implementation Group on issues that are impacting people across Scotland.

In our initial response to the pandemic, we funded organisations that could directly support people and communities. This included support to organisations to enable them to increase the capacity of helplines, many of which offer friendship as well as advice, such as Age Scotland who received over £700,000.

Furthermore, the £5 million ‘Connecting Scotland’ project will enable 9,000 people, including people clinically at risk or on low incomes, to get online with dedicated training and support. This will have a positive impact for people who are digitally excluded and unable to connect with friends and family.

Most recently, the National Implementation Group has been asked to feed into the developing work of the Age and Disability policy circle, as one of the circles supporting the new Social Renewal Advisory Board. This initiative will learn from, and build on, the positive policy and practice shifts seen during our response to Covid 19. The Board will scrutinise the work of the policy circles and put forward policy propositions derived from lived experience to help deliver impactful change.

The minutes of the National Implementation Group are shared with members and we will look to publish these on the Scottish Government webpages in due course.

We know that there are likely to be a range of non-COVID impacts of the pandemic on our young people, including on their mental health and wellbeing, learning, employment prospects and increased levels of poverty. As we begin to understand the issues in more detail, we will use that understanding to continue to develop tailored policy responses for young people, building on existing good work.

Some of that crucial work has started already. For example, the Scottish Government has announced an additional £100 million to support employment with at least half of that being used to support young people into work. We have announced £50 million for around 850 extra teachers and 200 additional support staff and are working hard to support the return of our children and young people to school. We have also allocated £2 million of new funding to Local Authorities to support community mental health and wellbeing services for 5 to 25 year olds and their families and carers. And we have invested an additional £3 million to support the delivery of youth work services and £5 million in a digital support fund for vulnerable young people. The establishment of the Promise Team to deliver the findings of the Care Review comes with £4 million to support children and families and help them stay together. Our Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan, is also backed by a £50 million fund, and sets out the actions we are taking to help reduce child poverty and help children and young people avoid becoming parents in poverty by 2030.

Underpinning all this action, Scottish Government teams will continue to work with partners and stakeholders to understand the impact of COVID-19 on children and young people as the pandemic unfolds. A COVID-19 Children and Families Collective Leadership Group has been established; in collaboration with the wider public sector, local partnerships and the third sector. This Group is gathering information about the adversities and challenges children and young people are facing to progress local and national actions in response. Current key work-streams involve actions around child protection, disabled children and young people, domestic abuse, family support, and kinship families. Learning from the lived experience of young people and their families and listening to their voices is central to this work.

The Scottish Government is also embedding children and young people’s rights into our response to COVID-19. We will introduce legislation later this year to incorporate the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Bill will aim to ensure that there is a proactive culture of everyday accountability for children and young people’s rights across public services in Scotland. This will mean that children, young people and their families will experience public bodies consistently acting to uphold their rights.