Chamber and committees

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-30834 on 12 August 2020. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

It is crucial that carers are supported to undertake their caring role safely. That is why this Government brought forward the Carers Act to enhance and extend the rights of all adult carers and young carers to support across the country.

Local authorities have a duty to identify carers’ needs for support. Carers also have the right to support to meet their eligible needs. This may include needs for training, including on moving and handling.

Local authorities have a separate duty to maintain an information and advice service for carers. These services, normally delivered by carer centres, must provide information and advice on a variety of issues, including training available to carers.

Carers also have a right to be involved in conversations about the support for the person they care for. This means they should be aware of any particular moving and handling needs and decide to what extent they are willing and able to provide that type of care.

Where necessary, input from Allied Health Professionals and other clinical colleagues can be provided to support and guide carers with moving and handling, along with helping them to secure access to the right equipment. These services will provide individual assessments where needed and are part of local mobilisation plans, although they may look different to ensure safe delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ministers and COSLA wrote to Health and Social Care Partnerships on 10 April to ask them to prioritise additional carer support in their local mobilisation plans for responding to the pandemic. This is on top of the extra £11.6 million for carer support in the 2020-21 budget. Partnerships were also asked to include local carer organisations in their local resilience planning.

We are encouraging carers to make plans for the future. Many local carer services provide support for carers on future and emergency planning. As many local carer services are unable to offer face to face support at the moment, we launched a £500,000 fund to support local carer services to operate remotely, over the phone or online.

Health Boards and Local Authorities are using established multi agency relationships and systems to continue and adapt GIRFEC approaches to support children and families including maintaining contact, assessing and planning for individual children.

We published our Digital Health and Care Strategy in 2018, this provided a strong foundation for us to scale up our digital response to Covid-19, building on initiatives that were already underway, using tried and tested, and readily available technologies.

Our digital response to Covid-19 has included the roll-out of Microsoft Teams across our entire NHS estate which has allowed for greater collaboration across organisations including Local Authorities by providing a platform for secure communication where required across multi-disciplinary teams.

The Scottish Government are working to ensure that high quality care is available for Trauma and Orthopaedic patients, and discussions on the resumption of Orthopaedic services have taken place with Mr Alastair Murray, Chair of the Scottish Committee of Orthopaedic and Trauma.

In relation to best practice guidance for joint replacement surgery, Trauma and Orthopaedic services across Scotland are ensuring they adhere to the existing standards for pre-assessment, admission and surgery that were in place before the Covid pandemic. Care is being taken to ensure that patients are segregated to minimise risk of nosocomial wound and prosthetic infection.

Follow up post-surgery will be in line with the current standard practice and will often be carried out via the telephone or through the use of “Near Me”, with patient initiated reviews being offered so that individuals can contact the service for advice if any problems/concerns arise. In addition the Scottish Arthroplasty Project continues to collect data on this patient group to monitor clinical outcomes.

Mr Murray and the Scottish Government Muscular Skeletal (MSK) Access Team and the Quality Improvement Team are keen to work with patient groups to help inform any proposed changes to waiting list priority in MSK and have already been involved with the cross party group on MSK chaired by Brian Whittle MSP, as well as Versus Arthritis.

The financial sector is designated as a Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) sector, providing essential services for businesses and society. As such, the sector has continued to operate throughout the COVID-19 crisis, adjusting its operating practices to ensure continuity of service while protecting its staff and customers.

The financial sector has already made significant adjustments, for example allowing bank branches to remain open, while maintaining physical distancing and enabling large numbers of staff to work from home, ensuring the continued provision of services across banking, insurance and investment.

I convened a short life working group comprising representatives from the sector, unions, government and regulators to develop guidance for the sector. This guidance was published on 7 August 2020 and is available on the Scottish Government website.

Following the First Minister’s statement on 30 July 2020, from 3 August coaches are permitted to work with more than four households outdoors in a day, subject to sport scotland guidance. We will also be looking to make changes to allow coaches to work with larger groups outdoors and will provide further details on when this can resume in due course.

The indicative date for the reopening of indoor leisure facilities is 14 September with physical distancing and enhanced hygiene measures are in place. The Scottish Government will keep this under review to consider whether an earlier re-opening date is feasible.

With effect from 15 July, Scottish Ministers removed the restrictions in the Health Protection (Coronavirus)(Scotland) Regulations 2020 affecting attendance at marriage ceremonies and civil partnership registrations, subject to the need to maintain physical distancing within the couple’s chosen venue.

This means that it is now possible for a marriage ceremony or civil partnership registration to take place in any venue permitted to open under the Health Protection Regulations, such as hospitality venues, places of worship and registration offices.

The Scottish Government has published guidance for couples and celebrants to coincide with this change. At present, we are advising that no more than 20 people should attend a marriage ceremony or civil partnership registration, provided they can be accommodated safely with the necessary physical distancing in the couple's chosen venue. This limit will be reviewed again on 20 August.

The Scottish Government did not make an announcement at the end of 2019 regarding a launch of a ‘Doctor’s Health Service’. The Scottish Government is working with partners to ensure that all health and social care workers, including doctors, have the support they need when they need it, including access to specialist psychological services.

The Scottish Government is developing a plan for a staged approach to the return of services that contribute to the wellbeing of residents in care homes. The plan, which will be published in due course, is aimed at people, organisations and professionals including health and social care services visiting care homes to support people where it is clinically safe to do so. It is important that the resumption of services and suppliers operating within care homes is done incrementally in order to protect those living and working in care homes. The use of non-face to face methods such as telephone or near me consultation, which has been in operation throughout the COVID-19 pandemic for some services, will continue wherever possible.

Assistive technology support is largely provided by local authorities, housing providers and third sector organisations. The majority of the support provided is via telecare services which has been a well-established lifeline for disabled or elderly people for a long time. Local Authorities have trained teams who support people to utilise technology at home, for example to use their red button service for specific help or other helpful technologies which can remind people to take important medicines or bring on the lights automatically when getting in and out of bed. Guidance on telecare was issued at the start of the pandemic for local authority providers and to ensure that suitable support was in place to continue to deliver a sustained service. Digital has played an important role in the response to Covid-19, for example through NHS Near Me video consulting which was designed with users to be intuitive and easy to use while also being accessible through technology that many people have in the palm of their hands. This way of developing and designing services has been important in supporting the scale of adoption that we have seen to date.

Part 4 of the Health (Tobacco, Nicotine and Care) (Scotland) Act 2016 ] also places a duty on health boards to provide or secure the provision of communication equipment, and the support in using that equipment, to any person who has lost their voice or has difficulty speaking. Scottish Government officials have been in contact with the NHS national service - Scottish Centre for Technology for Communication Impaired (SCTCI) - to hear how they are meeting the challenges faced during the pandemic. SCTCI (and other specialist services who hold the legislative duty) advise that services have continued to be available during this time, subject to necessary adaptations of processes and procedures to ensure compliance with all relevant Covid-19 guidance on infection prevention and control.