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While the Scottish Government strongly recommends that those eligible to receive vaccines should do so, vaccination is not mandatory: individuals have a choice as to whether they themselves are vaccinated and whether they vaccinate their children. We continue to make every effort to promote and encourage vaccinations. It is clear that our view on the importance of vaccination is shared by most people in Scotland as we have some of the highest uptake rates in Europe for our national programmes.

We want to vaccinate as many people as quickly as possible and are continually working hard to see if distribution can be made faster. Our Chief Pharmaceutical Officer wrote on to all GPs and Health Boards explaining in more detail the mechanism of supply, ordering and delivery, with suggested solutions at local board level that can also assist them.

We are in regular contact with boards to ensure GPs have the most up to date information on when supply is available and what our expectations are for them. We provide as much detail as we can while rightly allowing our teams to focus on the task of delivering the biggest vaccination programme ever seen in Scotland.

In the national programme we have the workforce and the infrastructure capacity to vaccinate 400,000 people, supply permitting. Vaccination will take place in care homes, where needed into people’s own homes, through GP surgeries, local vaccination clinics, community pharmacies, mobile vaccination units and mass vaccination centres. The locations used will be chosen to maximise the number we can vaccinate while making it as accessible and easy as possible for people to come to their appointment.

We want to vaccinate as many people as quickly as possible and are continually working hard to see if distribution can be made faster. Our Chief Pharmaceutical Officer wrote on to all GPs and Health Boards explaining in more detail the mechanism of supply, ordering and delivery, with suggested solutions at local board level including the local pharmacies that can also assist them. We are in regular contact with boards to ensure GPs have the most up to date information on when supply is available and what our expectations are for them.

The Armed Forces are supporting planning activity at a national and local level. They are helping to ensure that by the time sufficient vaccination supplies are in place, we have the facility to deliver around 400,000 doses per week by the end of February.

This includes identifying and operationalising vaccine sites before handing them over to NHS Scotland staff.

We call on armed forces support as and when it is needed, and are conscious of the demands on their time, given the pressures that NHS hospitals in England have been under.

Should health boards require additional support, we will consider extending the Military Aid to Civil Authorities (MACA) request, depending on individual requirements.

All NHS Scotland Health Boards have been offered military support and these boards continue to respond effectively to the needs of their communities.

Our intention is to have offered first doses to everyone on the JCVI priority list by mid-April, supplies permitting.

Beyond that - again assuming we receive adequate supply - we will aim to have offered first doses to the entire adult population by the end of July, earlier than the planned date of September.

Scotland’s COVID-19 vaccination programme continues to deliver at pace, which is down to the enormous efforts of our vaccination teams.

Just over a third of those eligible for the COVID-19 vaccination in Scotland have now received their first dose – that is one and a half million people in the groups which were prioritised to address 99 per cent of preventable deaths associated with COVID-19 in the United Kingdom.

We continue to vaccinate as fast as possible, supply permitting. We do have the capacity and infrastructure in place to deliver 400,000 vaccines per week.

The Scottish Government do not have any plans to appoint a Covid-19 Vaccine Minister.

Our top priority is to vaccinate as many people as we can as quickly as possible, starting with those at the highest clinical risk. This includes residents in care homes and the staff who provide their care.

The Scottish Government continues to monitor COVID-19 cases and vaccinations, and publishes this information regularly on its website, available here: Coronavirus (COVID-19): daily data for Scotland - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

Although not specific to care homes, the University of Edinburgh did recently publish a study on reduction in hospital admissions from the vaccine. From their study sample they found that by the fourth week after receiving the initial dose, the Pfizer and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines were shown to reduce the risk of hospitalisation from COVID-19 by up to 85 per cent and 94 per cent, respectively. And among those aged 80 years and over, one of the highest risk groups, vaccination was associated with an 81 per cent reduction in hospitalisation risk in the fourth week when the results for both vaccines were combined.

Advice on how to minimise wasted doses of vaccine, including having a reserve list of priority and high-risk patients, has been provided to Health Boards.

Vaccinations are taking place differently across Scotland to reflect the needs of local communities. It is NHS Scotland who will confirm local arrangements and who will invite the eligible cohort by letter to receive a COVID-19 vaccine

Furthermore, members of public can phone the Coronavirus Vaccination Helpline on 0800 0308013 (available 8am to 8pm, 7 days a week).

More general information about the coronavirus vaccine and its delivery is also available at NHS Inform