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We are working hard to ensure vital and urgent care remains, including the use of the Golden Jubilee and the use of private hospital capacity to treat these NHS patients. By utilising the private sector capacity we are able to provide a COVID free environment for urgent cancer procedures.

Over the coming weeks we will be developing a clinical priorities framework alongside health boards that will help to inform how the health and care system is aligned and managed during the next phase of the COVID-19 response, and beyond. This includes consideration of establishing dedicated “green” specific areas to carry out treatments including cancer.

The Scottish Government does not hold the total number of men or women with blood cancer, in each age group, who have contacted or died from COVID-19. National Records of Scotland have recently published statistics on Deaths Involving Coronavirus (COVID-19) in Scotland, which can be found by following this link: https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/files/statistics/covid19/covid-deaths-report-week-18.pdf . The Scottish Government also does not hold the intensive care information requested by the member.

The Scottish Government is committed to supporting every care home in Scotland whether or not an outbreak has been experienced.

Health and Social Care Partnerships developed local mobilisation plans in response to the COVID-19 emergency. These plans, which are generally aligned with emergency planning arrangements of local councils and NHS Boards, identify key risks and challenges posed by COVID-19, including those in the care home sector, and outline appropriate responses to ensure that vulnerable people are protected.

Locally, partners are undertaking risk assessments of individual care homes to ensure that staff and residents are protected. This is being led by the Directors of Public Health who have been asked to provide enhanced clinical leadership working in partnership with the Health and Social Care Partnership and the Care Inspectorate. Local risk assessment work is constantly evolving and residents and relatives will be informed of any relevant actions coming from this work in an appropriate and timely manner.

Due to the prolonged incubation period of COVID-19, it has not so far been possible to report with the accuracy required how many cases of healthcare associated infection (HCAI) involving COVID-19 have occurred in each NHS board.

The normal definition of a HCAI is an infection, not present or incubating on admission, which then arises after 48 hours from admission. Current estimates for COVID-19 suggest a median incubation period from 5–6 days, with a range from 1–14 days. This means that COVID-19 arising before day 14 in hospital may not be HCAI.

Health Protection Scotland (HPS) is however working with UK counterparts, taking into account recent discussions at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, to establish UK-wide HCAI definitions for COVID-19. It is hoped then to publish information about data collected in NHS Boards based on these definitions as soon as is possible, and I will write to the member when this information is available.

Clinical waste is regularly collected from Health Board sites. This arrangement means clinical waste is not stored for prolonged periods.

Information on the number of people who have received cancer treatment in each week since 1 January 2020 is not available yet from Public Health Scotland. Quarterly Information on the number of referrals who started first treatment up to the end of 2019 is available for the ten main cancer sites from the Cancer Waiting Times dataset. The ten main cancer sites are: breast, cervical, colorectal, head & neck, lung, lymphoma, ovarian, melanoma, upper gastro-intestinal (hepato-pancreato-biliary and oesophago-gastric), and urological (prostate, bladder, other). Quarterly information up to end of March 2020 will be available from 30 June 2020 .

That information is not held centrally. Between 1 March 2020 and 27 April, over 97 million items of PPE have been distributed to NHS Boards.

Each board now has a single point of contact for supply and importantly distribution of appropriate PPE to each clinical setting in hospital and to ensure any issues are speedily addressed.

All Health Boards have produced mobilisation plans which set out the steps they are taking to maximise intensive care capacity while maintaining essential services, such as emergency, cancer and maternity care. All Health Boards have now implemented plans to increase ICU capacity to treble their baseline. This increase in ICU bed capacity includes increased staffing delivered through internal redeployment supported by education and training which is being locally provided to meet the needs of each Board. The Chief Nursing Officer issued guidance to all Health Boards to support the deployment of Nursing, AHP, Pharmacy and other staff in Critical Care last month.

Guidance is based on reviewing the available published evidence and informed by expert opinion drawn from a wide range of sources, including from behavioural sciences. Guidance and advice for the public is available through NHS Inform, a substantive media campaign is underway to raise awareness of these resources.

The Scottish Government COVID-19 Advisory Group has discussed this issue and is following the research being carried out on a UK-wide basis by SAGE. Further to this, discussions are ongoing with Public Health Scotland on understanding variance in rates of infection and death from Covid-19 by a range of factors, including ethnic minority status. The four CMOs across the UK are also working with Public Health England to explore the impact of COVID-19 on people from minority ethnic backgrounds.