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The COVID-19 data and trend charts for Scotland are published daily and provide a range of information, including the number of care homes notifying cases of COVID-19 and the number of suspected cases of COVID-19 in care homes. These data are available from 11 April 2020 and are updated daily. There are also data on the number of people that have been tested for COVID-19 in Scotland, these are available from 2 March 2020 and provide a cumulative number. There is no breakdown of how many of these tests were for care home staff or residents.

Data are broken down by NHS board for:

• the cumulative number of cases that have tested positive for COVID-19;
• the number of patients in intensive care with confirmed or suspected COVID-19; and
• the number of patients in hospital with confirmed or suspected COVID-19.

The link to the daily data update is:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/trends-in-number-of-people-in-hospital-with-confirmed-or-suspected-covid-19/

The group was first convened on 26 March 2020 and has met every Monday and Thursday since then. Further information about the group, including notes of the discussions which have taken place, is available here: https://www.gov.scot/groups/scottish-government-covid-19-advisory-group/ .

The Scottish Government set out our approach to contact tracing on 4 May in the Test, Trace Isolate, Support Strategy . We will establish an enhanced COVID-19 contact tracing service in every Board. Recruitment and training of new staff will be managed by existing health protection teams who have high quality skills and experience in delivering contact tracing, and of which some are already undertaking COVID-19 contact tracing work. Recruitment has commenced in a phased approach, to introduce as necessary a national contract tracing team managing routine work and supporting local contact tracing teams. Initial workforce education resources for staff supporting the contact tracing programme have been developed in partnership with Health Boards and made available to all Health Boards before 25th May. All staff who will be recruited to undertaken Contact Tracing activity either at a national level or local level, will use these core materials to help ensure consistency across Health Boards in Scotland. As of 18 May 2020, c 680 staff have been identified locally and over 8000 notes of interest have been received nationally, in addition to those NHS returners who are being considered for deployment.

There have been no discussions between the Scottish Government and these organisations on the provision of exams for GP trainees, which are primarily issues for the statutory medical education bodies, the GMC and the Royal College to resolve.

On the recommendation from NHS Education for Scotland, the Scottish Government has however approved interim arrangements to enable those impacted to remain in their training posts in Scotland until solutions are agreed, including providing the estimated costs of £1.1m. There are ongoing discussions between these organisations, including participation from the BMA Junior Doctor Committee, to ensure all trainee GPs in their final year of training can complete their exams as soon as practically possible.

From the outset of the Covid-19 outbreak, the Scottish Government has maintained frequent contact with the General Medical Council, as well as the Nursing and Midwifery Council, Health and Care Professions Council and General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC), to discuss and agree the phased roll-out of their Covid-19 temporary registers in exercise of their emergency powers.

In respect of the GMC, whose Registrar already had powers to temporarily register anyone deemed to be a "fit, proper and suitably experienced" person, the Covid-19 temporary register was established on 27 March 2020 for doctors who gave up registration or licence to practise in the previous 3 years. It was expanded on 2 April 2020 to include those who gave up registration in the previous 3-6 years and those who are registered but do not currently have a licence to practise. On 7 April 2020 it was further expanded to include final year medical students by accelerating the annual provisional registration process.

All cohorts have automatically been granted temporary registration on an opt-out basis. All doctors are registered on the Covid-19 register on the basis that there are no open fitness-to-practise investigations, sanctions or conditions on their practice.

The Scottish Government has made no decision on NHS laundry services and will not make a decision until we have addressed the current Covid-19 situation.

The Scottish Government is in regular written and phone contact with Scottish Care, who are the representative body of most care home providers in Scotland, on a range of matters relating to Covid-19 and I regularly speak to their CEO, Dr Donald Macaskill.

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.

As the member knows our waiting times improvement plan included the delivery of six elective diagnostic and treatment centres. The first of these will open at the Golden Jubilee National Hospital.

The member will appreciate that in scaling up and repositioning the NHS to cope with the challenge of COVID-19 this work has been slowed down. However as we develop our plans to "restart" the NHS, these centres will be an important part of our consideration. This restart work is underway, clinically led and with the engagement of the Royal Colleges, Board and Unions and mindful of other inter-dependencies such as construction work and transport.

We hope to make the intention and plans for the initial phase public in the near future.

18 May 2020 (Holding Reply Issued 13 May 2020)

I recognise how important the death in service benefit is to NHS staff and that is why it has been agreed with the principal health service unions, including the BMA, RCN and Unison, that all staff affected by COVID-19 as a result of providing frontline services will have access to the death in service benefits available under the terms of the NHS pension scheme, should the worst happen, including provision of a lump sum and survivor’s benefits. This applies to permanent and fixed-term staff. I can advise that NHS Bank and NHS Locum staff are also included. The death in service benefit ensures parity between colleagues and will provide reassurance for staff in these unprecedented times.

I have subsequently sent a letter on 24 April 2020, advising the Health and Sport Committee that my officials are working at pace with NHS Employers and our trade union partners to finalise the scheme's terms and conditions; we aim to publish a Statement of Scheme Particulars by 1 May 2020, at which time I will share the details with the committee.