Chamber and committees

Regulation and authorisation of medicines is reserved to the UK Government. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is the UK agency responsible for the approval of clinical trials in the UK and of marketing authorisations (licences) for new medicinal products. There are currently no COVID-19 vaccines authorised for supply in the UK for those aged 12 years and under.

In the event that the MHRA authorises COVID-19 vaccine(s) for those under the age of 12 years we will be guided by this and by advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccinations and Immunisations on offering vaccination to this age group.

As you know, our Mental Health Transition & Recovery Plan, which sets out over 100 actions in response to the mental health effects of the pandemic, is supported by a £120 million Recovery and Renewal fund.

This year, around £40 million has been allocated to NHS Boards to improve the mental health care that children and young people receive through Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) and also includes funding for NHS Boards to build professional capacity to support children and young people with neurodevelopmental support needs.

Since October 2020, we have also allocated £30 million of additional funding to local authorities to deliver locally based mental health and wellbeing support for 5-24 year olds in their communities. This includes £18.75 million to fund new and enhanced community mental health and wellbeing services for 5-24 year olds with a focus on prevention, early intervention and the treatment of distress. The remaining £11.25 million was made available to support children and young people’s mental health and emotional wellbeing issues that have arisen as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In addition, we continue to prioritise support for children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing in schools, including developing and delivering new mental health training and learning resources, and £16 million per annum in funding to ensure that every secondary school has access to counselling services.

I can confirm that a fee award increase for General Ophthalmic Services eye examinations is under active consideration.

The Scottish Government is committed to improving the population of Scotland’s mental health and wellbeing; ensuring everyone receives the best possible care and treatment from our health and care services. Delivering service improvement can only be achieved with the right workforce capacity and capability.

This is why we have committed to develop a long-term Mental Health Workforce Plan in the first half of this Parliament and will ensure that by 2026, 10% of frontline NHS budget is invested in mental health, with 1% directed specifically to children and young people.

Since May 2021 we have committed £27.23 million to support NHS Boards to implement the National Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) Service Specification. Through this funding, NHS Boards have started to recruit additional staff to implement the Specification and to build professional capacity to support children and young people with neurodevelopmental support needs.

In addition to this work we continue to support our local authority partners providing £16 million in funding to ensure that every secondary school in Scotland has access to counselling services. Since the beginning of the 2019/20 academic year we have also invested more than £7 million to support our commitment to introduce more than 80 additional counsellors in colleges and universities with over two thirds of these now in place.

Since October 2020, we have also allocated £30 million of additional funding to local authorities to deliver locally based mental health and wellbeing support for 5-24 year olds in their communities. This includes £18.75 million to fund new and enhanced community mental health and wellbeing services for 5-24 year olds with a focus on prevention, early intervention and the treatment of distress. The remaining £11.25m was made available to support children and young people’s mental health and emotional wellbeing issues that have arisen as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

This Government has made clear that whilst a cautious approach to removing or reducing mitigations will continue to be taken, we do not want mitigations to be in place in schools any longer than is necessary. Therefore, as confirmed on 19 October existing safety measures are to remain in schools for now, following advice from senior clinicians.

As has been the case throughout Scotland’s response to the pandemic, all decisions related to schools draw on expert advice, including that received from the Advisory sub-group on children’s issues , and consider the valuable feedback from partners and stakeholders, including the COVID-19 Education Recovery Group?(CERG) . There is no fixed threshold for decisions to either increase or decrease mitigations, but instead a range of indicators are monitored. All adjustments to mitigations in schools, and other education settings, are made after very careful consideration of all available advice and continue to be kept under regular review in light of emerging scientific evidence.

This government has seen an 87.7% increase in consultant oncologists and we’ve increased consultant radiologists by 57.4% (September 2006 – June 2021). We recognise the immense pressure our NHS workforce has been under in response to the pandemic and we are working to provide a sustainable workforce. The National Cancer Plan is backed by £114.5 million and has the potential to provide significant financial support to address cancer workforce shortages.

As part of the work of the National Cancer Recovery Group (NCRG), we are currently carrying out an exercise to identify workforce requirements to help inform wider planning discussions. This will look at roles specifically related to cancer.

Informed consent is integral to the vaccination programme, and we have developed detailed information for young people and their parents or carers to allow them to make informed decisions on vaccination. Vaccinators are fully trained and have materials to support discussions on informed consent at appointments.

Further information on consent for children and young people can be found on NHS Inform: Vaccinating 12 to 15 year olds | NHS inform .

A new leaflet from Public Health Scotland will be circulated and is available to view online at: COVID-19 vaccine information for young people in English (healthscotland.com) .

Whilst we strongly encourage those eligible to receive coronavirus vaccination to do so, the decision is one of personal choice and the Scottish Government has no plans to introduce mandatory vaccination.

Figures published by Public Health Scotland about average numbers of close contacts are based on completed Test and Protect interviews and completed online tracing form data, where index cases identify their close contacts.

As of 19 September Test and Protect has been successful in reaching over 1 million unique contacts.

We have introduced a range of measures, including increased use of digital and SMS communications and shortened call scripts for index case interviews, to ensure the contact tracing system continues to trace the contacts of people with Coronavirus and ensure they are given the right public health advice as quickly as possible, even when case numbers rise substantially. All decisions in relation to operational delivery of the contact tracing system have made in line with public health advice, including the continued prioritisation of higher risk cases. A combination of these changes is likely to have affected the average number of close contacts reported per case.

Test and Protect relies on members of the public to report all of their close contacts, to enable public health advice to be issued to those that may have been exposed to the virus. The Scottish Government strongly encourages everyone to engage with Test and Protect when contacted and fully disclose all contacts whether contacted by phone or digitally.

Over nine consecutive years, qualified nursing numbers have grown and we have also steadily increased places on undergraduate nursing courses. Ahead of each academic year, the Scottish Government undertakes a robust student intake planning process which seeks to estimate the levels of student intake necessary to service Scotland’s nursing workforce requirements in future years. At the conclusion of each year’s process, recommended target intake figures are agreed across four fields of nursing: adult, mental health, learning disability, and children’s nursing. This allows us to ensure there are sufficient nurses entering the healthcare system who specialise in each field of nursing each year.

The Scottish Government is also committed to the growth of advanced nursing practice, which is why in 2017 we committed £3m investment over 5 years to train an additional 500 advanced nurse practitioners. In April 2021, the Scottish Government published a paper setting out key areas for further expansion of advanced nursing practice. The paper can be found at the link below:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/transforming-nursing-roles-advanced-nursing-practice-phase-ii/