Chamber and committees

We introduced the scheme on 1 October 2021, at which point all people aged 18 or over had had the opportunity to be fully vaccinated. In addition we gave a month’s notice of the intention to bring the scheme into place. We recognise there may be a small number of people who caught Covid during this period and whose second vaccination has therefore had to be delayed. Those people will be able to obtain a vaccine certificate once they have been fully vaccinated.

Ambulance services around the UK, as well as the wider NHS, are experiencing unprecedented demand – largely because of COVID but also due to a combination of increasingly complex cases, staffing challenges and exceptionally busy emergency departments.

That is why we have already taken significant action both prior to and since the pandemic to put in place measures to ensure all Health Boards including NHS Lothian and our Ambulance service have a full range of support.

In July, NHS Lothian received their share of the additional £12 million provided to Health Boards to support non-COVID emergency care. This funding will be utilised to boost staffing and capacity levels to reduce waiting times for urgent and emergency treatment.

To address the unacceptable ambulance waits, we announced an additional package of support for the Scottish Ambulance Service, backed by an additional £20 million, which will help increase capacity and improve response times and staff wellbeing - this includes assistance from over 100 military personnel.

We continue to be in daily contact with NHS Lothian to support improvement work within the Board and the Health & Social Care Partnerships to minimise delays for patients no matter where they are in the system.

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.

The information requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government and would require to be obtained directly from Health Boards.

To date 791 paramedics have been recruited. Another 126 will come on stream in 4 months with more than 100 joining in early 2022.

Covid-19 has resulted in some delays to recruitment which will push the achievement of this commitment out to 2022 but revised plans indicate a high level of confidence in achieving this.

With increasing A&E attendances, demand and capacity concerns and the impact of Covid-19, it is important that we ensure the NHS is equipped with the resources it needs to meet the challenges of the future. By investing in a professional, highly skilled ambulance workforce, this will help deliver a better service for patients all across Scotland.

The NHS Scotland COVID Status app was released on
‎ 30 September. The App allows users to display their vaccination status for international travel and to gain entry to late night venues and large events within Scotland. To date it has been downloaded over 600,000 times.

Information on the current number of face to face appointments is not held centrally by the Scottish Government as GP practices are responsible for their own patient appointment and consultation arrangements. We are currently working with stakeholders to improve data collection.

GP practices are independent contractors and therefore decisions relating to telephony are at their discretion. On top of practices’ core funding allocation, the Scottish Government is making an additional £600,000 funding available this year for the Health Boards to allocate to GP practices for the purpose of upgrading or replacing telephony systems.

The requested information is not centrally held. NHS Education for Scotland publish annual data on joiners/leavers, but this information is not available by reason or destination.

Information on joiners/leavers by staff group for each financial year can be found on the following link:

https://turasdata.nes.nhs.scot/media/tnvdmmwd/turnover_m2021_updated.xlsx

Fully vaccinated means that it has been at least 14 days since your final dose of an approved COVID-19 vaccine. To count as fully vaccinated, you must have been vaccinated in either:

1. The UK, including part of a UK vaccine rollout overseas - with an NHS approved vaccine.

2. An EU member state – with a vaccine approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA).

3. Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland, Andorra, Monaco, San Marino or Vatican City - with a vaccine approved by the EMA or the Swiss vaccination programme

4. The USA – with a vaccine authorised by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

If you’ve not been vaccinated in one of these countries, with an approved vaccine, you should follow the rules for someone who has not been fully vaccinated.

If you live in Scotland and you've received your first, second or both vaccine doses outside of Scotland but in the Common Travel Area, you can get your coronavirus vaccination status via the normal process as records should transfer over to the Scottish system: Get a record of your coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination status | The coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine (nhsinform.scot) . If your data is not showing you should phone the COVID-19 Vaccination Status Helpline on 0808 196 8565.

If you have moved to/from Scotland during the vaccine process and only had 1 dose here it is possible to request proof of the single dose you received in Scotland through the normal process. You will need to request proof of your other dose from the country you received it in.

If you received both doses in another Common Travel Area country, you'll need to request your vaccination status from that country.

If you received 1 or both doses in an international country you will need to request proof of those vaccines from that country.