Chamber and committees

Local authorities are working in partnership with health boards to provide information on travel to vaccination centres including the provision of community transport if appropriate. In remote and rural areas local authorities are supporting transportation and in some places mobile vaccination facilities are being used to reach people.

We are asking people to attend the appointments they have been allocated if they possibly can. We would encourage people to accept that they may not necessarily be given an appointment at the centre closest to them, as the principle objective is to vaccinate as many people as we possibly can as fast as we can. However, in instances where individuals are unable to travel due to a mobility issue, complex medical need or other we would ask them to phone the national Covid Vaccination Appointment booking number to book an appointment at a more convenient location.

If the nature of the person’s condition means that they cannot travel at all, Service Now should pass that call to the local health board call handlers to arrange a more local solution which would be either at their GP Practice or to be vaccinated in their own home if they are housebound.

Health boards are responsible for ensuring venues are accessible and will make appropriate adjustment to ensure that all vaccination sites are accessible to all. Responsibilities are set out in the Equalities Act 2010 and other relevant legislation such as the Social Care ( Self-Directed Support ) Act 2013.

The Scottish Government is working with the voluntary and third sector to set up a centralised volunteer coordination hub to make good use of the locally offered support and in particular for deployment at mass vaccination clinics and to help people who need assistance to access local clinics.

For those who are housebound, there will be domiciliary visits (either by the community nursing team attached to the health centre or a community vaccination team.

Anyone who has been called forward for a vaccine and who would like additional help, should call the Scottish COVID-19 Vaccination Helpline (0800 030 8013).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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