NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and NHS Ayrshire and Arran both notified the Scottish Government of critical issues relating to mental health service continuity during the COVID-19 pandemic once. Both instances were to relate changes in service delivery in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Changes were brought to the attention of The Minister for Mental Health and advice was sought from professional advisors. The assessment of professional advisors in both cases was that the NHS Boards' proposals for service changes were sound and would achieve the objective of safe continuity of service.

The remit of the Care Home Rapid Action Group is to bring together representatives from across the care home system to monitor data on developments in the sector, enabling a swift reaction to any developing issues. The Group meets twice a week, once in plenary form, with a sub-group meeting separately to discuss data.

Specific objectives of the Group are to:

• enhance existing collaborative working across industry leaders;
• identify issues for urgent resolution;
• request and analyse information and data on a range of metrics; and
• identify issues for urgent resolution, making proposals to Scottish Government and the care sector leadership for other national level actions

The Group will not give clinical advice or substitute for the decision making powers of statutory and other bodies, national or local. Instead, the discussion focuses around key developments in the care home sector, and relevant national actions. Membership is constantly being reviewed to ensure fair representation from across the sector and currently includes the following organisations:

1. BMA Scotland

2. Care Inspectorate

3. Chief Executives Group

4. Chief Officers Group

5. COSLA

6. Mental Welfare Commission

7. NHS Scotland Health Boards

8. Public Health Scotland

9. RCGP Scotland

10. RCN Scotland

11. Scottish Care

12. Scottish Directors of Public Health

13. Scottish Social Services Council

14. SOLACE

In order to maximise the reach of services for people who are isolating, the Scottish Government is investing a total of £6 million of additional funding to support the population’s mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes £3.8 million to increase the capacity of NHS 24’s telephone and online services, and to extend digital therapies, and £1 million to roll out the Distress Brief Intervention programme on a national basis.

In addition, NHS Boards and Integration Authorities are submitting COVID-19 local mobilisation plans to the Scottish Government, setting out their additional resource needs, including for supporting people who are shielding, and other vulnerable groups who are being asked to self-isolate.

NHS Scotland does not use the term ‘dormitory ward’ for the classification of hospital wards, nor do we publish data at individual ward level of each hospital. However, the Information Services Division (ISD) does publish a list of the total number of hospitals in NHS Scotland (over 270) and it does provide a more detailed analysis of the number of beds in use.

The list of hospitals can be accessed here: https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Hospital-Care/Hospitals/ .

Whereas the bed level data is published here: https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Hospital-Care/Beds/ .

Under NHS arrangements in Scotland patients are registered with individual dentists rather than dental practices. The majority of dentists who accept patients for NHS registration will operate with practices which also perform some elements of private work, even if the volume of that work is negligible. The most recently published dental registration statistics indicated that 5.2 million people were registered with an NHS dentist as of 30 September 2019, representing 95.7% of the Scottish population.

Dentists in Scotland are independent contractors who may provide both NHS and private dental services. While the Scottish Government does not hold specific information about the number of dental practices that provide private dental care, the majority of dental practices that provide NHS also perform some elements of private work, although for some the volume of that work will be negligible.

The total number of dental practices in Scotland in receipt of NHS funding is presently 1,028.

Scottish Government do not hold this information, which is kept at a local level. However, we have been clear that it is critical that social care support is maintained throughout this difficult period to ensure the safety, dignity and human rights of people who already receive support. We have made clear to Local Authorities that they should act to do what is right to deal with the virus, and not be constrained by funding issues.

We have made it clear to Local Authorities that they should act to do what is right to deal with the virus, and not be constrained by funding issues. An initial £50 million to help the social care sector deal with the financial implications of COVID - 19 was confirmed on 12 May. This funding will allow cash to flow to those parts of the social care sector where additional costs have been incurred, particularly in care home and care at home services. This year our package of investment to support integration and social care will exceed £800 million. The money from the UK Government’s Coronavirus Emergency Response Fund has already been allocated to support a range of important measures. We will continue to press the UK Government for urgent additional funding for the health service, local government and care sector to adequately deal with this crisis.

Throughout this difficult time, it is critical that social care support is maintained to ensure the safety, dignity and human rights of people who already receive that support and along with their carers.

I have already stated in the Scottish Parliament that it is not acceptable that care packages are cut during this period.

In addition to the funding directed towards social care from the 2020-21 budget, we reached agreement with COSLA some weeks ago that we would meet additional costs incurred because of the impact of the pandemic. That agreement was specifically to ensure that both existing and new demand could be met.

Scottish Government and COSLA jointly issued guidance to all authorities on 14 th May which is very clear that while there are some unavoidable reasons that may affect packages, any changes to support should be temporary. Such unavoidable changes include workforce capacity pressures and infection control measures which prevent delivery of support in a group setting.

We have made it clear to Local Authorities that they should act to do what is right to deal with the virus, and not be constrained by funding issues. An initial £50 million to help the social care sector deal with the financial implications of COVID - 19 was confirmed on 12 May. This funding will allow cash to flow to those parts of the social care sector where additional costs have been incurred, particularly in care home and care at home services. This year our package of investment to support integration and social care will exceed £800 million. The money from the UK Government’s Coronavirus Emergency Response Fund has already been allocated to support a range of important measures. We will continue to press the UK Government for urgent additional funding for the health service, local government and care sector to adequately deal with this crisis.

I assume the member is referring to items of PPE. If that is the case the number of items stockpiled for a pandemic event at the first quarter of each year from 2016 to 2020 are as follows:

The Scottish Government is continuing to fund access to free period products during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Local authority policy leads for both education and community provision are making reasonable adjustments to ensure products can continue to be accessed by those most in need. In wider community settings products have been redistributed to, for example, places that remain open, including community hubs. For school pupils products were made available to take home in the last few days of school, in some places there is provision of products in food boxes, and products continue to be accessible via those schools that remain open. Some local authorities have put in place home delivery options via Hey Girls and in one area products can be collected for free from a number of local convenience stores.

For college and university students, the Scottish Funding Council has liaised with Hey Girls to offer home delivery kits and redeemable online codes and a number of institutions have taken this up. Those that do not wish to take up this offer have been asked to consider alternative arrangements but students can of course also access free products via their local community hubs.

FareShare continue to provide period products to a significant number of community groups across the country.