Chamber and committees

Scotland’s COVID-19 vaccination programme continues to deliver at pace, which is down to the enormous efforts of our vaccination teams.

Just over a third of those eligible for the COVID-19 vaccination in Scotland have now received their first dose – that is one and a half million people in the groups which were prioritised to address 99 per cent of preventable deaths associated with COVID-19 in the United Kingdom.

We continue to vaccinate as fast as possible, supply permitting. We do have the capacity and infrastructure in place to deliver 400,000 vaccines per week.

We follow JCVI guidance on priority including any clinical guidance on vaccine use they recommend.

Our intention is to have offered first doses to everyone on the JCVI priority list by mid-April, supplies permitting.

Beyond that - again assuming we receive adequate supply - we will aim to have offered first doses to the entire adult population by the end of July, earlier than the planned date of September.

In the national programme we have the workforce and the infrastructure capacity to vaccinate 400,000 people, supply permitting. Vaccination will take place in care homes, where needed into people’s own homes, through GP surgeries, local vaccination clinics, community pharmacies, mobile vaccination units and mass vaccination centres. The locations used will be chosen to maximise the number we can vaccinate while making it as accessible and easy as possible for people to come to their appointment.

We want to vaccinate as many people as quickly as possible and are continually working hard to see if distribution can be made faster. Our Chief Pharmaceutical Officer wrote on to all GPs and Health Boards explaining in more detail the mechanism of supply, ordering and delivery, with suggested solutions at local board level including the local pharmacies that can also assist them. We are in regular contact with boards to ensure GPs have the most up to date information on when supply is available and what our expectations are for them.

The Armed Forces are supporting planning activity at a national and local level. They are helping to ensure that by the time sufficient vaccination supplies are in place, we have the facility to deliver around 400,000 doses per week by the end of February.

This includes identifying and operationalising vaccine sites before handing them over to NHS Scotland staff.

We call on armed forces support as and when it is needed, and are conscious of the demands on their time, given the pressures that NHS hospitals in England have been under.

Should health boards require additional support, we will consider extending the Military Aid to Civil Authorities (MACA) request, depending on individual requirements.

All NHS Scotland Health Boards have been offered military support and these boards continue to respond effectively to the needs of their communities.

While the Scottish Government strongly recommends that those eligible to receive vaccines should do so, vaccination is not mandatory: individuals have a choice as to whether they themselves are vaccinated and whether they vaccinate their children. We continue to make every effort to promote and encourage vaccinations. It is clear that our view on the importance of vaccination is shared by most people in Scotland as we have some of the highest uptake rates in Europe for our national programmes.

Following extensive research to determine motivations to vaccinate we launched a mass communication public health marketing campaign ‘Roll up your sleeves’ to promote the roll out of the vaccine programme, on 21 st January. The Roll Up Your Sleeves campaign will run across TV, radio, outdoor, press, PR and social media channels until end March and plans are in place for future phases of the activity to support the younger audiences and encourage vaccine uptake.

The campaign will reach a very large (99.1%) of all adults (4.36m) in Scotland who will see the advertising a minimum of 20.6 times. The campaign signposts the public to a national helpline and to NHS Inform where more further detailed information on the vaccine programme is available and is updated regularly.

Close to 12,200 vaccinators are registered on our national Vaccination Management Tool.

Boards are approaching 1,400 support staff headcount available for deployment.

The Scottish Government is considering the role of a vaccination certificate.

However, it is too soon to introduce any form of certification. We need to know more about the efficacy of the vaccines, their impact on transmission and the length of immunity before it would be safe to introduce a vaccine certificate. The Scottish Government continues to engage in international developments in relation to COVID-19, including on the subject of vaccine certification. We are contributing 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, and our four nation discussions with the governments of the UK.

The Scottish Government do not have any plans to appoint a Covid-19 Vaccine Minister.