Questions and answers

Question reference: S6W-05726

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 14 January 2022
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 25 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether impact assessments were undertaken to inform decision making when using emergency COVID-19 powers.

Question reference: S6W-05596

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 10 January 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 25 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy is carried out by any NHS boards.

Question reference: S6W-05640

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 11 January 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 25 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government which of its (a) ministers and (b) departments is responsible for oversight of audiology services.

Question reference: S6W-05728

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 14 January 2022
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 25 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what mechanisms are in place to embed core human rights principles into the use of COVID-19 emergency powers.

Question reference: S6F-00720

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 24 January 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 27 January 2022

To ask the First Minister how much has been spent on private sector contracts in the preparation of the proposed national care service.

Question reference: S6W-05605

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 10 January 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 24 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will publish data on deaths resulting from COVID-19, broken down by cases where individuals were (a) vaccinated and (b) unvaccinated.

The COVID-19 statistical report which is published weekly includes a section for COVID-19 Cases, Hospitalisations, and Deaths by Vaccine Status. These can be found at this link. https://publichealthscotland.scot/publications/show-all-releases?id=20580

This reports on the total number of COVID-19 cases, COVID-19 related acute hospital admissions and confirmed COVID-19 deaths by their vaccination status and covers the period from December 2020 to present.

Question reference: S6W-05604

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 10 January 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 24 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will publish data on hospitalisations as a result of COVID-19, broken down by cases where individuals were (a) vaccinated and (b) unvaccinated.

The COVID-19 statistical report which is published weekly includes a section for COVID-19 Cases, Hospitalisations, and Deaths by Vaccine Status. These can be found at this link. https://publichealthscotland.scot/publications/show-all-releases?id=20580

This reports on the total number of COVID-19 cases, COVID-19 related acute hospital admissions and confirmed COVID-19 deaths by their vaccination status and covers the period from December 2020 to present.

Question reference: S6W-05521

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 January 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 24 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government when it will review the eligibility for anti-viral medication for people with COVID-19.

The eligibility criteria for direct access to new COVID-19 treatments was developed by an independent expert working group commissioned by the UK Department of Health and Social Care and is based on detailed clinical evidence. The criteria are set out in a UK-wide clinical commissioning policy . The policy targets those higher risk individuals who have the potential to both be least likely to generate a material immune response to vaccines and be at highest risk of disease progression, hospitalisation and death.

From 22 December 2021, adults and children (aged 12 years and above) are eligible to be assessed for their suitability for new COVID-19 treatments if they:

have received a positive PCR test for COVID-19 in the last five days; and
have symptoms of COVID-19 that started in the previous five days; and
are associated with one of the patient groups considered at high risk from coronavirus and with a clinical condition prioritised for treatment.

Further information is available on NHS Inform .

In addition to the direct access arrangements described above for the most vulnerable, coronavirus oral antiviral treatments are being evaluated through a UK-wide study called PANORAMIC, run by the University of Oxford.

The outcomes from the study will enable the NHS to fully understand how best to make use of these treatments in the future.

Question reference: S6W-05520

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 January 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 24 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of reports that COVID-19 case numbers are not doubling every two days, what the current modelling of the number of cases of the Omicron variant show about likely patterns of transmission.

The results of the current COVID modelling from a range of sources is available in the latest weekly Scottish Government report ( https://www.gov.scot/collections/coronavirus-covid-19-modelling-the-epidemic/ ). In the issue published on 13th January we noted that on 5 January 2022, 91.1% of all PCR tests from Pillar 2 Lighthouse Labs had the S-gene target failure, used as a proxy for Omicron cases. Therefore SG have stopped producing estimates of doubling times of the Omicron variant.

The modelling the epidemic has been published continuously since May 2020 and provides modelling outputs on the current epidemic in Scotland, based on a range of methods. Results of Scottish Government modelling, as well as those of the modelling groups which feed into the SAGE consensus, are provided in these research findings. We apply a variety of analytical methods in order to understand changes in behaviour which could lead to altered transmission rates. For example, we use the Scottish Contact Survey (SCS) to learn about how people’s contact patterns have changed. The findings from the SCS are then used to help us understand the patterns of contacts and informs the current modelling to indicate the likely number of cases in the medium term (the next 2-6 weeks). We included the medium term projection of the number of infections in the most recent weekly modelling the epidemic report of the current modelling ( https://www.gov.scot/collections/coronavirus-covid-19-modelling-the-epidemic/ ).

Question reference: S6W-05524

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 January 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 24 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what supplies of anti-viral medication are held by each NHS board, and how many people these supplies can treat.

The UK Government has secured a further 4.25m patient courses of antiviral treatments to reduce the impact of COVID-19 and the Omicron variant across the UK. This includes 2.5 million patient courses of Paxlovid (PF-07321332+ritonavir (co-packaged)) from Pfizer and 1.75 million patient courses of molnupiravir from Merck Sharp and Dohme.

This is in addition to the 730,000 patient courses of these COVID-19 antivirals already secured - 480,000 courses of molnupiravir and 250,000 courses of PF-07321332+ritonavir (co-packaged), as announced on 20 October 2021. These treatments are a further measure to protect against COVID-19, in addition to vaccinations, which remain our best defence against this virus.

The UK Government takes initial receipt of stock, with proportionate supplies distributed to the four UK nations. In Scotland, NHS National Procurement allocates supplies to Health Boards depending on local need. There is sufficient supply to meet this current deployment, in line with need.

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