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Following the pause of the breast screening programme in March 2020, there was a staged restart. This was based on expert clinical advice and the recommendations of the Scottish Screening Committee, and was agreed with Health Board Chief Executives as part of the planned remobilisation of the NHS. The breast screening programme resumed on 3 August 2020, initially prioritising those whose appointments were cancelled or delayed due to the pause. The programme is now at the stage of offering routine appointments for eligible women aged between 50 and 70.

The recovery of the breast screening programme, including reviewing the pause to self-referrals for the over 70s is monitored by the Breast Screening Programme Board, the National Screening Oversight Board and the Scottish Screening Committee. It should be noted that the risks and benefits of breast screening for people over the age of 70 have not been clearly established. Covid-19 and the measures to control its spread, such as physical distancing and the use of PPE, also continue to pose challenges to capacity in the screening programme. The decision to maintain the pause on self-referrals for the over 70s, though difficult, was therefore taken to allow the service to prioritise those who require to be offered appointments and for whom screening has clear benefits.

The Scottish Government and Public Health Scotland (PHS) continue to work with health boards to support their planning and the safe delivery of immunisation services during the pandemic.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that pupils who were not offered the HPV vaccine (first or second dose), or who missed the immunisation sessions at their school, will be offered the vaccine during planned catch-up sessions arranged by their health board, as soon as is practicable, now that Scottish schools have re-opened fully.

Young people and their parents can therefore be reassured that if they have missed their HPV, Meningitis ACWY or Tetanus/Diphtheria/Polio booster vaccines, these will be rescheduled.

Information on the status of the 2020-21 routine and catch-up HPV programmes, by NHS Boards, will be gathered by Public Health Scotland by end of August.

Data reporting the overage self-referrals is not published with the Breast screening statistics by Public Health Scotland. However, data collated for the Breast screening review for the 3 year period from 2016-17 – 2018-19 reports a total of 32,492 self-referrals from women age 70+ over the period and equates to 5.7% of total screening activity.

The chief officers of health and social care partnerships were provided with a link to guidance on the Scottish Government website regarding the Coronavirus (Scotland) Act 2020 and Coronavirus (Scotland) (No.2) Act 2020. This was provided on 7 April, the day all of the provisions in the Coronavirus (Scotland) Act 2020 came into force, apart from those relating to the easements to s.13ZA of the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968. Chief officers were advised of the relevant pages that contained guidance on adults with incapacity changes. That guidance made clear that the easements to s.13ZA would only come into force when and if Ministers approved its use by invoking regulations. This would be strictly only when evidenced as being absolutely necessary. These regulations did not come into force.

This information is not held centrally. However, you may wish to contact Scottish Local Authorities individually for information they may hold. The Scottish local government page of the Confederation of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) has contact information for these: https://www.cosla.gov.uk/councils.

Since 2015, the Save a Life for Scotland Partnership has equipped more than 640,000 people in Scotland with CPR skills. Over the same time period the rate of people surviving an out of hospital cardiac arrest has increased from one in 20 to one in 10.

In March this year, the partnership published an updated Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest strategy, which sets out a number of actions across the chain of survival, including actions to improve bystander CPR and defibrillation rates. There is a clear commitment to working closely with Local Authorities to ensure that all school aged children have the opportunity to learn CPR. The strategy can be found at:

Out of hospital cardiac arrest: strategy 2021 to 2026 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

Information on the number of support staff employed by Police Scotland is not held centrally by the Scottish Government. The information requested may be available on Police Scotland’s website, within the ‘Police Scotland Officers & Staff Quarterly Fact Sheet’ (link attached). The latest publication (Quarter 1 2021) provides data on staff numbers nationally and by local division.

Police Scotland Officer Numbers - Police Scotland

Yes. Further to advice from the Chief Medical Officer, the use of transvaginal mesh was halted in NHS Scotland in September 2018 and I can envisage no circumstances whatsoever in which that would change.

The numbers who may attend marriage ceremonies, civil partnership registrations, funerals and wedding receptions and post-funeral gatherings in public places both indoors and outdoors are set out in guidance. These numbers only apply when the venue has sufficient capacity to hold them, with physical distancing. The position on permitted numbers at these events is as follows:

Level 0 - No more than 200 people should attend

Level 1 - No more than 100 people should attend

Level 2 - No more than 50 people should attend

Level 3 - No more than 50 people should attend

Level 4 - No more than 20 people should attend

Receptions and post-funeral gatherings are not permitted at protection level 4.

We have published guidance on marriages, civil partnerships and receptions and funerals and post-funeral gatherings. I would be happy to write to the member with further information about any points of clarification required.

The pause to self-referrals for women over 70 is a temporary measure that is regularly reviewed by the Breast Screening Programme Board, the National Screening Oversight Board and the Scottish Screening Committee (of which the Scottish Government is a member). It will be lifted as soon as capacity allows. Meantime, the Scottish Screening Committee, the National Screening Oversight Board and the Programme Board are working with NHS NSD and Health boards to understand how the capacity challenges might be overcome.

Additional funding of £1.08 billion has been confirmed through the Scottish Budget for health and care for 2021-22 to support the response to the pandemic.

From this, the Scottish Government is providing an initial £380 million to NHS Boards in 2021-22 to meet ongoing costs associated with Covid-19. This includes funding for PPE, Test and Protect and delivery of Covid-19 vaccinations.

The Scottish Government will continue to ensure that our health and care services have the funding that they require to respond to this pandemic, and will make available further additional support following our detailed Quarter One financial review.

Details of funding allocations to NHS Boards are set out in the following table: