Seòmar agus comataidhean

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-28198 on 27 April 2020.

I am leading work to ensure a range of mental health and wellbeing support is in place for NHS and social care staff, complementing the work being taken forward by NHS Boards and Health and Social Care Partnerships at a local level. The work I am leading will cover the whole health and social care workforce whatever the setting or contractual arrangements.

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 .

As of 3 May 2020 there were 1991 registered enquiries into the covid-19-health-PPE@gov.scot mailbox.

The Scottish Government recognises that the lack of access to professional pet grooming services has the potential to impact on the welfare of certain breeds of animal, particularly those requiring regular grooming to maintain their wellbeing.

Routine grooming is deemed a non-essential business activity. Where an animal is not at risk of pain or injury, professional groomers should not be providing routine grooming services. 

Where essential professional grooming on welfare grounds is undertaken it must be conducted in line with the rules on physical distancing.  Such tasks essential for the welfare of an animal include the clipping of heavy coats and claws. 

The working group established under direct Ministerial control has helped to mobilise business support for NHS Scotland and co-ordinate supply chains through a cross-government team including the Scottish Government, Scottish Enterprise, NHS Scotland and the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland.

A broad range of Scottish manufacturing businesses have repurposed and increased production to address shortages of hand sanitiser, personal protective equipment (PPE) and medical devices. This effort is reshoring economic activity to Scotland, building and strengthening Scottish supply chains for the future.

CalaChem in Grangemouth for example have already produced 20,000 litres of hand sanitiser using alcohol supplied by distillers Whyte and Mackay and have accepted an order from NHS Scotland to produce a further 560,000 litres. This order alone more than matches NHS Scotland’s immediate demand for hand sanitiser. Stonehaven manufacturing firm Macphie has started bottling the initial CalaChem product and will deliver the order into the national supply chain.

We are supporting the PPE supply chain through a pipeline of NHS Scotland orders and through investment in capacity. Annan-based PPE manufacturers Alpha Solway are currently producing 20,000 face visors per day for NHS Scotland as part of an order of 1.1 million visors. The business has also invested in new mask-making machinery with capacity to produce 15 million respirator masks per annum.

To address critical global shortages of the key raw material used in the manufacture of respirator masks, the Scottish Government has provided a £3.6 million repayable grant to Forfar-based textiles company Don and Low. This will go towards the purchase, import and installation of a new £4.5 million machine capable of both meeting and exceeding our domestic demand for the fine filter material required in high performance masks.

Don and Low are also supplying an initial order of 1.4 million square metres of fabric for the production of gowns for NHS Scotland. The fabric will be distributed among garment manufacturers in Scotland and England to achieve the fastest possible conversion to the final gowns product.

Berry BPI with factories in Greenock and Dumfries have invested in new machinery to produce aprons and apron-style gowns for the NHS. By early May BPI will be manufacturing around 200,000 special fluid-resistant, long-sleeve apron-style gowns and over six million standard disposable aprons every week.

Scottish engineering businesses are at the vanguard of efforts to manufacture more ventilators to support increased critical care capacity across they UK. Two companies with facilities in Scotland are part of an effort led by Babcock international Group to design and produce more ventilators. As part of this effort Plexus and Raytheon will both be supporting the production of ventilators from their Kelso, Livingston and Glenrothes manufacturing facilities. Plexus and Raytheon have been supported by Scottish Enterprise to facilitate their involvement in vital efforts to increase ventilator capacity for the NHS and Scottish Enterprise remains in contact to provide any operational support they require.

Our excellent Scottish life science businesses are working to support the Test, Trace and Isolate approach and testing supply chain, from manufacture and supply of test kits, testing equipment and reagents and the provision of lab services and technical support.

Where necessary to meet exceptionally high demand resulting from Covid-19 the Scottish Government has also supported NHS Scotland in sourcing PPE, testing materials and equipment from global producers. Three charter flights containing globally-sourced supplies have arrived at Prestwick between 18 April and 4 May 2020. In total, from the three charter flights NHS Scotland has received: 27 million Type IIR face masks, 849 infusion pumps and 120,000 VTM (Virus collection and Transport Medium) testing kits. While these stocks are being distributed to the front-line further flights with more vital supplies are being scheduled.

As at the week ending 1 May, there were 77,057 sign-ups to the Ready Scotland website, the breakdown is provided in the following table:-

The national SMS service first started signposting people who are shielding and need support for deliveries of medication to their Local Authorities on 21 April. Collection of data for performance monitoring purposes of this service is underway, but data are not yet available.

The local authority telephone numbers for people seeking support with shielding can be found here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/covid-shielding/pages/contacts/

The Scottish Government does not hold information on either the numbers of staff taking calls or the waiting times across local authority areas.

By 24 April 2020, 76,888 people had registered with the SMS shielding service. Of these, 27,000 people registered before 10 April, and 49,888 people registered on or after 10 April.

The SMS shielding service offers information and support to people who have been advised to shield because they are at high risk of severe illness from COVID-19:

• People who sign up to the SMS service can use it to request free weekly boxes of basic groceries, if they don’t have another way of getting food and household items.
• The SMS service asks people if they would like their details to be passed to the supermarkets, so that they can access priority delivery slots.
• The SMS service signposts people to their local authority if they need prescription medications delivered.

All of these services are available to anyone in the shielding group who needs them, including people who do not have access to a mobile phone. The services can all be accessed through each local authority’s shielding helpline, or through the new national helpline.

Many people who are shielding will not require access to these services as they will have existing support networks they can use to access food and medicine.

People who are shielding are encouraged to register for the SMS service so that they can be contacted with further updates as the situation around COVID-19 develops.

The letter issued by the Chief Medical Officer to those who are recommended to shield contains important information advising how people in this group should keep themselves safe, what support is available to them, a range of references to sources of further information or help, and information about key issues which are likely to arise. It is essential that those being asked to shield have this information available to them in order to keep themselves safe.

Advice is also available through each local authority’s shielding helpline, or through the new national helpline.

The information contained in the letter is broadly the same as letters issued by the other Chief Medical Officers across the UK in relation to shielding.

There have been two interruptions to the service. On both 11 April and 21 April the SMS service was unable to send outgoing messages for a period of time. However, all inbound messages were received.

In each case people will have experienced a delay between sending their message to register and receiving a response from the SMS service confirming their registration, but no one will have been unable to register as a consequence.