The Scottish Government does not hold information centrally on attacks against NHS Scotland staff. NHS Boards have delegated responsibility as the employer. Figures on violence and aggression towards NHS Scotland staff are collated by Health Boards, in line with the relevant policies and procedures.

Assault of any form is completely unacceptable and we take a zero tolerance approach, to violence and aggression towards our NHS Staff. We have been very clear that Health Boards should support all staff that wish to make a claim, against anyone who assaults a staff member.

Some NHS Boards were closely involved in the planning of Exercise Silver Swan alongside the Scottish Government. Following the exercise, NHS Boards were provided with the exercise report to inform local planning. NHS Boards and other organisations discussed the exercise recommendations with the Scottish Government on 6 December 2016. Discussions on the exercise have also been held between the Scottish Government and the NHS Board officials dealing with resilience issues. Both NHS Boards and Scottish Government are represented at Regional Resilience Partnership meetings, where the exercise was discussed at regional level.

Any policies on media handling would be a matter for NHSScotland. Boards as individual organisations to consider locally.

We have not undertaken work to establish the costs associated with a national care service.

Number of “excess” deaths which occurred by day between 20 April 2020 and 31 May 2020 compared with “what would normally have been expected” based on the previous 2 years.

Scotland is not a member country of the World Health Organisation (WHO), the UK is, so that limits the engagement at formal levels. The Scottish Government has kept very close to the WHO briefings, publications, guidelines and advice through a variety of routes. Personal connections, online viewing of the briefings, summaries of WHO work and advice. The 4 nations Senior Clinicians Group call, which takes place twice a week, receives information from international sources, including the WHO, to add to its deliberations and advice.

Dr David Nabarro, WHO's special envoy for Covid-19, has been positive about our approach to the pandemic. He said that we are tackling it carefully and logically, thinking through how we make sure people are safe and how we make sure the economy can restart, layering these two concerns together. And I hope that most would agree with him when he said that we are levelling with the people of Scotland about what we are trying to work through as we deal with this crisis.

Global supply chains for PPE have been put under immense pressure due to the pandemic, and some Personal Assistants will be needing to use or access PPE for the first time. That is why we set up supplies from the national stock to top up existing supply routes of PPE for social care.

Part of this was the establishment of local PPE Hubs in every Health and Social Care Partnership area for onward distribution or collection of supplies by social care providers.

These Hubs expanded their provision at the end of April to support the whole social care sector with all of its PPE needs where normal supply routes fail; including unpaid carers and all employers of social care Personal Assistants/home carers. SPAEN confirmed the system was working well in their contact with us on 18 May.

Personal Assistants or their employer can find out the details of their local Hub on the Scottish Government website . We have been in regular contact with SPAEN about this topic and they helped to pass on these details to their members when the arrangements were put in place.

There are 6 drive-through testing centres in Scotland as part of the UK Government’s Expanded Testing Programme. These are located at Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen airports, the Highlands and Islands University campus’ in Inverness and Perth, and Prestwick Airport. Capacity at each site is split between employer referral, self-referral and the citizens portal to ensure key workers retain priority access.

As at 10 June, the maximum sampling capacity each day is as follows:

Aberdeen – 1100

Edinburgh – 1300

Glasgow – 1300

Inverness – 1100

Perth - 1100

Prestwick - 1100

The following numbers of items of eye protective equipment have been issued to the NHS and social care in response to the Covid 19 outbreak between 1 March and 31 May 2020, including the Tiger eyewear product which was recalled on 9 May:

Scottish Government officials met with a number of third sector organisations including Scouts Scotland; Girlguiding Scotland; The Boys’ Brigade; and the Outward Bound Trust on Friday 29 May 2020 . The meeting focused on challenges that third sector run outdoor education centres have encountered during lockdown. During that meeting third sector organisations put forward an idea of how to help upskill school staff in providing outdoor learning.

We are currently considering the challenges and opportunities raised during the meeting of the 29 May and we are committed to keeping Scouts Scotland; Girlguiding Scotland; The Boys’ Brigade; and the Outward Bound Trust informed of next steps.