Chamber and committees

We know that there are likely to be a range of non-COVID impacts of the pandemic on our young people, including on their mental health and wellbeing, learning, employment prospects and increased levels of poverty. As we begin to understand the issues in more detail, we will use that understanding to continue to develop tailored policy responses for young people, building on existing good work.

Some of that crucial work has started already. For example, the Scottish Government has announced an additional £100 million to support employment with at least half of that being used to support young people into work. We have announced £50 million for around 850 extra teachers and 200 additional support staff and are working hard to support the return of our children and young people to school. We have also allocated £2 million of new funding to Local Authorities to support community mental health and wellbeing services for 5 to 25 year olds and their families and carers. And we have invested an additional £3 million to support the delivery of youth work services and £5 million in a digital support fund for vulnerable young people. The establishment of the Promise Team to deliver the findings of the Care Review comes with £4 million to support children and families and help them stay together. Our Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan, is also backed by a £50 million fund, and sets out the actions we are taking to help reduce child poverty and help children and young people avoid becoming parents in poverty by 2030.

Underpinning all this action, Scottish Government teams will continue to work with partners and stakeholders to understand the impact of COVID-19 on children and young people as the pandemic unfolds. A COVID-19 Children and Families Collective Leadership Group has been established; in collaboration with the wider public sector, local partnerships and the third sector. This Group is gathering information about the adversities and challenges children and young people are facing to progress local and national actions in response. Current key work-streams involve actions around child protection, disabled children and young people, domestic abuse, family support, and kinship families. Learning from the lived experience of young people and their families and listening to their voices is central to this work.

The Scottish Government is also embedding children and young people’s rights into our response to COVID-19. We will introduce legislation later this year to incorporate the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Bill will aim to ensure that there is a proactive culture of everyday accountability for children and young people’s rights across public services in Scotland. This will mean that children, young people and their families will experience public bodies consistently acting to uphold their rights.

As Scotland transitions to the next phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are implementing a responsive system of community surveillance for COVID-19 direct and indirect impacts at national, regional and local level. This will help to minimise the spread of COVID-19 in Scotland by quickly identifying COVID resurgence, clusters, and outbreaks, and in doing so helping to protect our vulnerable populations and limiting the pressure on our key public and health services.

Through real time data streams and wide ranging analysis we will be informed by the nature and location of cases and this will support effective response and robust, agile and proportionate decision making.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) and the Scottish Government are using the following means to identify outbreaks:

• Electronic Communication of Surveillance in Scotland (ECOSS) – Through this system Public Health Scotland has access to all testing data; this is analysed on a daily basis and is used to identify cases and outbreaks and is made available to territorial health boards to support their analysis.
• HPZone – The data from ECOSS can be combined with data submitted from health board through the HPZone incident management system to build a more detailed picture of any outbreak.
• Early Warning Dashboard - The testing data from ECOSS has also recently been combined in a dashboard with NHS 24 respiratory symptom data indicating ‘possible’ COVID cases to deliver an early warning dashboard that is available to national and local decision makers. It is planned to continue to develop the sensitivity of this early warning capability.
• Test and Protect - The testing data is used to inform the contact tracing element of Test and Protect. The recent deployment of a sophisticated Case Management System to support both national and local level contact tracing team has increased the depth of data available to aid in identifying and managing outbreaks. PHS is continuing to work with local and national teams to further enhance the capabilities within the Case Management System.
• Molecular Data - PHS also has access to genomic data to aid in the molecular analysis of cases to identify and confirm linkage between individual cases within an outbreak.
• Local Knowledge - Through a variety of networks at both Health Board and Local Authority level, local Health Protection teams obtain additional information which supplement the data obtained through other systems as above.

To ensure the public are kept informed of the national and where possible the local position, Public Health Scotland provides daily COVID-19 data updates to the Scottish Government to support the daily briefing process and this is used to update the Scottish Government website. PHS already provides a public facing dashboard view of total cumulative cases, but is also working on a public facing dashboard that will inform the public of local authority areas where there may be an outbreak or ‘spike’ of COVID-19 cases.

The Scottish Government recognises how hard it has been for care home residents and their friends and relatives not to have regular face to face contact during the pandemic. The decision to restrict visitors was not taken lightly and was informed by scientific advice in order to protect those living and working in care homes from the risk of infection. People are able to visit loved ones in their final days and in other exceptional circumstances.

On the 25 th June, the Scottish Government announced a plan and guidance outlining a staged approach to the safe introduction of visiting in care homes during the COVID-19 outbreak. The new Guidance, sets out a 4 stage pathway that care homes can progress through; with each of stage allowing further visiting options for family and friends. The guidance states that essential visitors should continue to be supported throughout the pathway. The guidance can be accessed here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-adult-care-homes-visiting-guidance/ .

Procurement provisions are in place to ensure there is sufficient PPE for the current outbreak of Covid-19, including for the possibility of a second wave. Scotland has maintained and built up stocks of PPE via procurement on the international markets, as well as developing a sustainable domestic supply of PPE where possible from Scottish suppliers. We continue to work with partners within Scotland, across the 4 UK nations and globally to ensure continuity of supply and distribution.

I have met with interested parties on matters relating to the provision of PPE throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. These include meetings with unions, and where appropriate health boards and care sector representatives.

In developing its advice on face coverings, the Scottish Government took account of equality issues and advice from national disability stakeholders.

People do not have to wear a face covering if they have a health condition or they are disabled. Additionally, if a face covering would be inappropriate because it would cause difficulty, pain, or severe distress or anxiety or because it cannot be worn in the proper manner safely and consistently, people do not have to use one. This is reflected both in the relevant regulations and Scottish Government guidance.

As at 29 June, we have been informed by Public Health Scotland that 4,061 people who have been advised to shield have sadly died. The Scottish Government does not hold information about the cause of death of those who have died. As at 29 June, there are 181,075 people who are being advised to shield.

Those who have been advised to shield are considered to be at the highest risk of severe illness if they become infected with coronavirus because of an underlying health condition. There is likely to be an increased different cause mortality rate amongst people with such underlying health conditions.

The Scottish Government has asked Public Health Scotland to evaluate the shielding programme. The evaluation will aim to explore the effectiveness of shielding – which would include analysis of data regarding deaths in the shielded cohort.

The Scottish Government has the following information in relation to faulty testing kits:

On 14 June, NHS National Services Scotland (NSS) were made aware that one of the batches of Kingfisher (non-Randox) swabs in circulation did not meet NHS safety standards (brittle stems at risk of snapping whilst being used) and should be recalled immediately.

These test kits, sent out through the UK Government’s ‘Social Care Portal’ for use in Scotland, did not meet the required safety standards and were recalled. The UK Government's Department of Health and Social Care and NSS communicated this to potentially affected care homes. As an additional precaution, all care homes in Scotland were advised that these kits should be disposed of.

DHSC logged all reports of faulty kits through the Social Care Portal and replacement kits were issued to all affected care homes within 48 hours of that notification. Scottish Government Officials worked closely with NSS to ensure faulty kits were identified and replaced in a timely manner.

We have received no reports of anyone being hurt as a result of this and we will continue to ensure robust quality control.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has published advice on the risk of Legionella in buildings which have been closed or running with reduced occupancy during the COVID-19 crisis. This can be found on the Royal Environmental Health Institute of Scotland (REHIS) website at

https://rehis.com/story/legionella-risks-during-coronavirus-outbreak .

The HSE advice on mitigating the risks of legionella is included within sectoral guidance being published by the Scottish Government to support safe working environments for when people return to work across the country as lockdown restrictions are eased. This guidance can be viewed at

https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-returning-to-work/pages/employers/ .

The Global Health Security Index was published for the first time on 24 October 2019. This ranked the UK as a whole as second in the world in relation to preparedness for pandemics and other health security threats. We will consider all relevant lessons to inform future planning.