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The remobilisation of dental services has been effected as part of the wider Route Map devised by the Scottish Government to respond to the coronavirus pandemic which was the subject of an Equality and Fairer Scotland Impact Assessment (EQFSIA) as a whole. The EQFSIA recognised that ‘continued restrictions’ in dentistry must be taken in the context of the entirety of the emergency measures associated with the pandemic such as footfall, infection control measures, aerosol risks etc. This is the appropriate approach during a public health crisis where overarching considerations require the demand for care to be balanced with the risks posed by continuing to deliver that care.

As we continue to balance the harms associated with the pandemic, we are pushing forward with the reopening of practices and the restoration of routine care. On 12 October the Scottish Government announced that NHS dental services will be able to return to high street dental settings from 01 November. This will provide patients with access to the full range of treatments for all NHS patients in principle but the Scottish Government is clear that this is not business as usual: while the full range of treatments will be restored, dentists and dental teams will be required to continue to exercise clinical judgement in line with wider public health protection measures to offer appropriate volumes of appointments.

The pandemic has been an extremely challenging time for dentistry and the Scottish Government recognises NHS contractor efforts, patience and resilience throughout the period. We are committed to ensuring that the needs of patients to be seen for NHS dental treatment can be met, in a way that supports the good efforts of the dental community to maintain the high standards of health and safety needed to minimise the threat from COVID-19.

The Scottish Government is working with Health Boards to redesign urgent care pathways by reviewing and building upon some of the important work carried out during the pandemic to ensure people receive the right care, at the right place, at the right time, every time. This work will help minimise delays in A&E departments and ensure safe and efficient access to healthcare.

Additionally we are working with Health and Social Care Partnerships to deliver more care in the community, and where possible at home, avoiding the need to go to hospital unnecessarily. As part of the work to redesign urgent care we will continue to support health boards to deliver improved processes that will reduce the number of patients requiring admission to hospital and to ensure where admission is necessary that patients are discharged as soon as it is clinically appropriate to do so, avoiding unnecessary delays in hospital and reducing occupancy.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-32144 on 23 October 2020. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

We remain committed to our target of recruiting 250 Community Link Workers across Scotland by the end of the Parliament. As of September 2019 there were 112 Community Link Workers in post, all of whom have played a crucial role in supporting patients during the pandemic and helping those who are shielding.

The reporting process to track progress of the Community Link Work programme was temporarily suspended in March 2020 to allow Health and Social Care Partnerships to focus on their response to Covid 19. Correspondence established with Health and Social Care Partnerships during this period fed back no significant impact on recruitment. We are currently in the process of restarting the reporting process on GP contract implementation commitments.

Community Link Worker programmes are being rolled out at different rates across Scotland and it is for local Health and Social Care Partnerships to plan how these staff members are utilised and in which GP practices they work, based on their local needs and priorities. Data on where Community Link Workers are placed is held by Health and Social Care Partnerships.

The data on the number of hospital beds there have been in each NHS board in each of the last five years can be found on the Public Health Scotland website:

https://beta.isdscotland.org/find-publications-and-data/health-services/hospital-care/acute-hospital-activity-and-nhs-beds-information-annual/

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-32072 on 15 October 2020. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-32072 on 15 October 2020. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-32033 on 23 October 2020. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

We plan to establish at least 22 Local Test Sites. Sites in St Andrews, Glasgow city centre, west Glasgow, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, West Dunbartonshire, Stirling, Dundee, west Edinburgh, Inverness and Inverclyde are operational. We have worked closely with universities, health boards and local authorities to deliver these local test sites.

We have committed to delivering a further 11 sites by winter, and are working with our partners to identify further site locations. Decisions on where to plan sites will take into account the overall national test site landscape and local area needs, including:

• high population density,
• low car ownership,
• higher deprivation,
• whether those in rural areas can access tests,
• distance from regional testing centres and mobile testing units,
• whether areas are not covered by home test kit delivery and pick up, and,
• higher positive test rates.

A number of university and private laboratories were used to bolster testing capacity as we undertook our initial response to the pandemic. Since the start of the outbreak we have significantly increased our NHS testing capacity from 350 tests per day to a maximum weekday capacity of more than 10,000 tests.

A number of university and private laboratories remain part of the contingency plans for increasing testing if required. However, our focus is to ensure we increase NHS capacity. We will soon be able to activate 3 Regional Hubs – 3 large labs across Scotland – which will significantly increase our NHS lab capacity.

The forecasted spend in relation to university and private labs for Covid-19 testing is currently £12.5 million for this year. As this is a forecast, this figure is subject to change