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.

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

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

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.

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 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. We provide as much detail as we can while rightly allowing our teams to focus on the task of delivering the biggest vaccination programme ever seen in Scotland.

Our top priority is to vaccinate as many people as we can as quickly as possible, starting with those at the highest clinical risk. This includes residents in care homes and the staff who provide their care.

The Scottish Government continues to monitor COVID-19 cases and vaccinations, and publishes this information regularly on its website, available here: Coronavirus (COVID-19): daily data for Scotland - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

Although not specific to care homes, the University of Edinburgh did recently publish a study on reduction in hospital admissions from the vaccine. From their study sample they found that by the fourth week after receiving the initial dose, the Pfizer and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines were shown to reduce the risk of hospitalisation from COVID-19 by up to 85 per cent and 94 per cent, respectively. And among those aged 80 years and over, one of the highest risk groups, vaccination was associated with an 81 per cent reduction in hospitalisation risk in the fourth week when the results for both vaccines were combined.

Advice on how to minimise wasted doses of vaccine, including having a reserve list of priority and high-risk patients, has been provided to Health Boards.

Vaccinations are taking place differently across Scotland to reflect the needs of local communities. It is NHS Scotland who will confirm local arrangements and who will invite the eligible cohort by letter to receive a COVID-19 vaccine

Furthermore, members of public can phone the Coronavirus Vaccination Helpline on 0800 0308013 (available 8am to 8pm, 7 days a week).

More general information about the coronavirus vaccine and its delivery is also available at NHS Inform