Seòmar agus comataidhean

Constituents have raised a couple of points with me, one of which relates to the warning period for a change in a country’s status as regards travel. Sometimes, the status of a country that people have travelled to changes while they are there so they face a mad scramble to get home again. Is a change of timescale being considered so that people are not caught out in that way?

Another issue that NHS professionals have raised with me is the pressure on the NHS caused by absenteeism because of people getting regularly pinged by test and protect. I have heard about cases of neonatal units where there are supposed to be 12 people on duty, but there are only three. Such situations are inherently dangerous and relate to the impact of non-Covid-related incidents. Where are we with that? How we are measuring the situation and keeping on top of it?

Thank you, cabinet secretary. We are probably broadly aligned with regard to my line of questioning, but I am looking ahead at how we will come out the other side. Covid has exacerbated problems—for example, levels of obesity have increased. That brings me on to my second question.

The increased pressure on the NHS is, without question, part of the jigsaw. I was struck by the suggestion from one of our previous witnesses that the worst way to tackle mental health problems is to firefight and end up having to treat them with drugs. The other day, I asked the cabinet secretary about staffing issues, which have been exacerbated by Covid. There are many more absentees in our health service than there normally are. Many more students are applying for medical courses than there are places on offer in universities and colleges, and the Covid recovery will require significant long-term workforce planning. Where is the Scottish Government on collecting data on that and looking ahead to what the demand will be and how it will match that demand with a further increase in staffing?

I have three questions. The convener suggested that the number 1 threat to the health of the nation would be if the data-gathering and digital cybersecurity issue became serious. On the back of that, I want to look ahead in relation to Covid recovery, and probably further ahead than we have been talking about. I am interested in the impact on the Covid death rate of other health conditions. We are aware that conditions such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease have a significant impact on the Covid death rate. I wonder whether it is time to rationalise that fact. Perhaps this is the time to draw a line in the sand and take a significant step forward on the preventative health agenda by tackling conditions such as obesity and diabetes, which will have the biggest impact on future death rates when there are pandemics, whether they are caused by Covid or something similar to it. What work is the Scottish Government doing or considering on that issue?

The cabinet secretary talks about the acute response to Covid that is currently required. We cannot overstate how important that is, but I want to consider where we will move to after that.

I go back to data gathering. Data is important to the longer-term study of the impact of Covid. I am interested in the impact on the black, Asian and minority ethnic community, the fact that we have a smaller BAME community here than there is down south, and whether that has had an impact on the numbers. We have a fairly poor health record in Scotland. I am interested in what impact that has had on the Covid data. We have talked about ethnicity in relation to the uptake of the vaccine and the variation in uptake in Scottish index of multiple deprivation areas.

If we consider the reactions of Governments at the start of the pandemic as the virus made its way across the world, we would agree that Governments did not react as quickly as they could have. All that data needs to be gathered.

Where are we on data gathering and pulling together all those issues to look at how we will come out of the other side of the pandemic and how we will prevent, as much as we possibly can, something similar happening again?

I am trying to establish where the evidence base is for not just the introduction of vaccination passports but the way in which the Scottish Government has introduced them. I am concerned that we seem to be comparing Scotland with what is happening in other countries and trying to take lessons from them when, of course, there is a huge variation in vaccine uptake across other countries, so there is variation in the need to encourage uptake. Is comparing the Scottish vaccination passport scheme with schemes in other countries an accurate way to assess whether we should adopt vaccination passports in Scotland?

The Scottish Government has said that the main driver for introducing the vaccination passport scheme is to encourage those who have not been vaccinated to get vaccinated. As we heard in last week’s evidence and as Professor Reicher’s evidence has highlighted, one of the key issues is the reluctance of certain groups to get the vaccine. In that regard, a big driver is ethnicity—I am thinking especially of our Polish and African communities—and another is living in areas of deprivation. If we are saying that people need to be vaccinated to get into nightclubs or football matches, I would suggest that the people in those groups are unlikely to be participants in those activities. Will the way in which the vaccination passport is being introduced help those groups do what the Scottish Government wants them to do, which is to get vaccinated? I will ask Professor Drury to respond first, given that he has not spoken to me yet.

Given that, as has been highlighted, there are specific pockets of our population that are less likely to be vaccinated, what should we do to encourage vaccination uptake?

This morning, we have heard that one of the key successes of vaccination passports will be community engagement, but we heard from the Deputy First Minister three weeks ago that there was no public or business consultation prior to declaring the intention to implement the vaccination passport, because you did not want it to become public knowledge that you were considering it. How did the Scottish Government gather the evidence on the potential effectiveness of the vaccination passport?

I would love to take this to appeal but, unfortunately, we do not have time, so I will step back.