Chamber and committees

Jointly with COSLA, I have agreed there will be no delay for adult social care support workers receiving at least the new Real Living Wage rate of £9.30 an hour for all hours worked, including sleep-overs and hours worked by personal assistants. This is payable from 1 April and avoid delay from prolonged contract negotiations. This package will also provide funding to third sector and independent providers specifically to ensure staff receive sick pay if they are off work ill or because they are self-isolating. A joint letter with Cllr Currie was issued to all local authorities setting out details of this arrangement on 10 April.

There are no plans to ration medical equipment during the COVID-19 pandemic. Every effort is being made to ensure that the capability and capacity needed are put in place.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-28605 on 18 May 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

Part A - Antibody

Antibody testing will tell us if a person has had the infection and enable us to learn more about the virus and how it is spreading through the population in Scotland. Evidence is evolving on whether the presence of antibodies indicates that someone is immune, and if so, for how long that immunity would persist.

Health Protection Scotland commenced antibody testing, for surveillance purposes, on 6 May. A reliable antibody test that can be deployed on a large scale is not yet available, although Health Protection Scotland is working with a number of companies on this. The aim would be to start to introduce diagnostic antibody testing as soon as possible after that.

Part B Vaccines

The Scottish Government Chief Scientist Office continues to have regular contact with equivalents in the other UK health departments as part of UK wide coordination of COVID-19-related research, and has been updated as part of this contact on the establishment of a Vaccines Taskforce to support UK efforts to rapidly develop a coronavirus vaccine. The CSO funded NHS research infrastructure is available to support vaccine studies when they are at the appropriate stage of development.

The SSSC, with the consent of Scottish Government, has already taken action to address the payment of registration fees for social care workers during this COVID-19 outbreak. This includes:

• New and returning care workers will not immediately have to pay the registration fee if joining the workforce. SSSC will not require registration or fee payment until 12 months passes. Previously fees had to be paid within 6 months so we have extended this period during the current pandemic.
• SSSC will not remove workers from the Register who are unable to pay the annual fee on time but will contact them at a later date if the fee remains due.
• A temporary register for Social Workers has also been established to encourage qualified students or those returning from a career break to back into permanent roles. For these social workers SSSC will waive fees, and will only request them when the emergency situation is over and that person remains employed as a social worker.

Details can be found on the SSSC’s website www.sssc.uk.com

Information on hospital discharges is collected by Public Health Scotland. The specific information requested is not held centrally.

The Scottish Government published its strategy for a "test, trace, isolate, support" approach in Scotland on 4 May. The publication can be found at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-test-trace-isolate-support/

The Scottish Government is concerned by recent reports (from England and the US) suggesting that minority ethnic communities are disproportionately affected by Covid-19.

Collection of ethnicity data is undertaken on a voluntary basis in Scotland in order to provide useful information for medical and other research purposes. Ethnicity questions are included in the death registration process, with informants to a death provided with a short statement as to their purpose, and noting that these questions, unlike the rest of the death registration process, are not statutory, and can be passed over if the informant does not wish to answer them.

More information on the quality of the data on ethnicity can be found on the NRS website via the following link:

https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/statistics-and-data/statistics/statistics-by-theme/vital-events/deaths/deaths-background-information/ethnicity-of-the-deceased-person

Analytical partners across the Scottish Government, NRS, Public Health Scotland and the NHS are working together to consider how we can better understand the impact of COVID-19 on those from all minority ethnic communities including from Black and Asian backgrounds. This data will be published when work is completed.

Public Health Scotland include deprivation analysis by Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) in their new weekly COVID-19 statistical reports. The first of these reports was published on Wednesday 6 th May.

https://publichealthscotland.scot/our-areas-of-work/sharing-our-data-and-intelligence/coronavirus-covid-19-data/ .

National Records of Scotland (NRS) will publish a report which examines COVID-19 deaths by Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) in mid-May.