Questions and answers

Question reference: S5W-33927

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 10 December 2020
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 7 January 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what weighting it plans to place on the requirement for potential contractors for the social security advocacy service to have experience of (a) directly delivering an advocacy service and (b) delivering an advocacy service in Scotland.

We are currently engaging with relevant stakeholders prior to the re-tendering process to ensure we consider and include the requirements they feel potential contractors should be able to demonstrate in order to be appointed to run the social security advocacy service.

This will help us in achieving our goal of creating a high quality, human-rights based service focussed on the needs of the client.

Question reference: S5W-33688

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 03 December 2020
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 7 January 2021

To ask the Scottish Government further to the answers to questions S5W-29524 and S5W-33108 by Jeane Freeman on 26 August and 20 November 2020 respectively, what further funding for hospices for loss of income during the subsequent financial quarters has been allocated, and when it will allocate the remaining funding.

As always we are open to further discussions on support.

On the 29 June, I wrote to Scottish Hospices to confirm that their funding requests related to loss of income during the first financial quarter of 2020 would be met in full. In total £10.1m was provided to Scottish Hospices for this purpose.

It is important to reflect that this funding was provided on a one off basis to account for loss of income at the beginning of the pandemic, and that we expect the existing commissioning arrangements between hospices and Integration Authorities to be maintained going forward.

Question reference: S5W-33928

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 December 2020
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 23 December 2020

To ask the Scottish Government how many people have used the interim social security advocacy service, and how many requests to use, or referrals to, the service have been made.

Nobody has used the interim social security advocacy service as of yet, and we have received no requests or referrals for the service.

The Coronavirus pandemic impacted on the rollout of disability benefits which led to the termination of the original tendering process for the comprehensive service. The interim advocacy service was introduced to ensure that there was a provision available for existing benefits, even although we anticipated the level of demand for the service would be low.

Question reference: S5W-33929

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 December 2020
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 23 December 2020

To ask the Scottish Government how many advocacy providers have fulfilled requests to use, or referrals to, the interim social security advocacy service, and who these providers were.

No providers have fulfilled requests to use, or referrals to, the interim advocacy social security service.

The Coronavirus pandemic impacted on the rollout of disability benefits which led to the termination of the original tendering process for the comprehensive service. The interim advocacy service was introduced to ensure that there was a provision available for existing benefits, even although we anticipated the level of demand for the service would be low.

Question reference: S5F-04692

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 21 December 2020
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 23 December 2020

To ask the First Minister how the Scottish Government's new clinical guidelines and definition will support people with long-COVID.

Question reference: S5W-32564

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 15 October 2020
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 21 December 2020

To ask the Scottish Government what information it collects regarding the occupations of people who request COVID-19 tests.

The Scottish Government does not collect this information.

The UK Government’s Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) holds occupation information where individuals provide it. This applies to individuals who take COVID tests through UK test centres or home test kits. The occupation information is aligned to Office for National Statistics occupation codes.

Public Health Scotland sends the Scottish Government information from Test and Protect interviews with individuals who have tested positive for COVID-19. This contains data about the sector of individuals’ occupations. The Scottish Government uses this information alongside a range of other scientific and clinical advice to inform our approach to testing.

Question reference: S5W-33108

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 09 November 2020
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 20 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government how much of the £19 million coronavirus funding for frontline charities allocated to hospices has been disbursed, broken down by the allocation to each hospice.

Question reference: S5W-32686

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 October 2020
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 19 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government how much flu vaccine it has allocated to each NHS board as a proportion of the eligible cohort population, and whether it will confirm the total cohort.

The Scottish Government has procured sufficient vaccine to vaccinate all those who have been invited to receive the seasonal flu vaccine, in line with our uptake planning assumptions that we will vaccinate 2.4 million people in total. This figure includes over 2 million people from Phase 1 cohorts, who are at the greatest clinical risk from seasonal flu.

The following data has been provided by National Service Scotland who purchase and distribute vaccinations.

Health Board	65 years and over	Initial Allocation	Allocation as % of eligible population
Ayrshire & Arran	84,228	85,760	102%
Borders	28,616	25,390	89%
Dumfries & Galloway	38,570	33,290	86%
Fife	77,024	73,910	96%
Forth Valley	59,174	54,230	92%
Grampian	107,946	103,480	96%
Greater Glasgow & Clyde	195,952	166,950	85%
Highland	75,298	70,830	94%
Lanarkshire	121,805	100,960	83%
Lothian	148,954	163,330	110%
Orkney	5,306	4,903	92%
Shetland	4,686	4,540	97%
Tayside	89,691	80,090	89%
Western Isles	6,895	5,000	73%

Flu season in the UK begins in December and reaches it peaks in January and February. So anyone who gets the flu vaccine will be protected before we expect flu cases to be at their highest. Those who are eligible for the free Seasonal Flu vaccine will be able to get the vaccine now, as well as later in the year.

Following a successful marketing campaign, this year has seen an extremely high demand for the seasonal flu vaccine. The Scottish Government is working closely with all Health Boards to support them to improve delivery and meet the increased demand they are experiencing.

Question reference: S5W-32952

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 02 November 2020
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 12 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-32563 by Jeane Freeman on 30 October 2020, what information the NHS collects regarding people's (a) employment status, (b) occupation and (c) place of work when they test positive for COVID-19; what format this information is recorded in, and whether it will ask the NHS to publish a regular statistical analysis of the data collected.

When an individual tests positive for COVID-19, their Test and Protect interview gathers details on where the individual has been in the 7 days prior to the date of symptom onset, or test-date if the person was asymptomatic. Public Health Scotland have confirmed there are fields for an individual's occupation and sector during this interview. Further information on settings and events is also collected and published in Table 8d of the Public Health Scotland COVID-19 Statistical report [ link ]. Public Health Scotland cannot infer from these figures whether a specific setting or event indicates where the COVID-19 transmission took place.

Scottish Government continues to work closely with Public Health Scotland on the publication of data related to Test and Protect. We constantly evaluate the balance between public benefit and data protection in our response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Question reference: S5W-32563

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 15 October 2020
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 30 October 2020

To ask the Scottish Government what information it collects regarding people's (a) employment status, (b) occupation and (c) place of work when they test positive for COVID-19, and in what format this information is recorded.

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