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The Case Record Review is underway. Introductory interviews with the participants are close to completion. More than half of the participants have received an ‘information gathering’ form from the Administrator. Following return of this form, Clinco, a commissioned contractor involved in the retrieval of patient records, will request the appropriate case records from Health Boards. This process is already underway for a number of participants.

As is standard practice, data sharing agreements are required for the release of medical records. Agreements are in place already for a number of Health Boards and it is expected that agreements will be in place in relation to all relevant Boards shortly.

Health Board Accountable Officers have been kept abreast of developments with the Case Record Review through the Short Life Working Group on mesh complications.

NHS National Procurement has confirmed that arrangements have been made to make Ronapreve available in Scottish Hospitals.

Commissioning guidance was issued to Health Boards on 17 September, and work is ongoing to ensure that Ronapreve can be administered as quickly as possible where clinically appropriate.

We have worked closely with a range of delivery and partner organisations to prepare, plan and respond to a range of issues and risks which may impact on NHS services. Planners and officials are using a range of modelling and intelligence to minimise potential impact of COP26 and to help protect NHS services across our communities.

Our planning has also used the experience and learning from previous large-scale events in Scotland, the UK and internationally including previous UN COP summits .

The Scottish Government publishes a weekly Research Findings which models the COVID-19 epidemic in Scotland. The Research Findings includes a section which estimates infections, as well as hospital and ICU bed demand from COVID-19. This gives an assessment of the impact of COVID-19 on the NHS in the next few weeks. This will provide information in the run up to COP26 and after the event has taken place.

The publications can be found on the Scottish Government website at the following link:

https://www.gov.scot/collections/coronavirus-covid-19-modelling-the-epidemic/

We introduced the scheme on 1 October 2021, at which point all people aged 18 or over had had the opportunity to be fully vaccinated. In addition we gave a month’s notice of the intention to bring the scheme into place. We recognise there may be a small number of people who caught Covid during this period and whose second vaccination has therefore had to be delayed. Those people will be able to obtain a vaccine certificate once they have been fully vaccinated.

Ambulance services around the UK, as well as the wider NHS, are experiencing unprecedented demand – largely because of COVID but also due to a combination of increasingly complex cases, staffing challenges and exceptionally busy emergency departments.

That is why we have already taken significant action both prior to and since the pandemic to put in place measures to ensure all Health Boards including NHS Lothian and our Ambulance service have a full range of support.

In July, NHS Lothian received their share of the additional £12 million provided to Health Boards to support non-COVID emergency care. This funding will be utilised to boost staffing and capacity levels to reduce waiting times for urgent and emergency treatment.

To address the unacceptable ambulance waits, we announced an additional package of support for the Scottish Ambulance Service, backed by an additional £20 million, which will help increase capacity and improve response times and staff wellbeing - this includes assistance from over 100 military personnel.

We continue to be in daily contact with NHS Lothian to support improvement work within the Board and the Health & Social Care Partnerships to minimise delays for patients no matter where they are in the system.

This government has seen an 87.7% increase in consultant oncologists and we’ve increased consultant radiologists by 57.4% (September 2006 – June 2021). We recognise the immense pressure our NHS workforce has been under in response to the pandemic and we are working to provide a sustainable workforce. The National Cancer Plan is backed by £114.5 million and has the potential to provide significant financial support to address cancer workforce shortages.

As part of the work of the National Cancer Recovery Group (NCRG), we are currently carrying out an exercise to identify workforce requirements to help inform wider planning discussions. This will look at roles specifically related to cancer.

The information requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government and would require to be obtained directly from Health Boards.

To date 791 paramedics have been recruited. Another 126 will come on stream in 4 months with more than 100 joining in early 2022.

Covid-19 has resulted in some delays to recruitment which will push the achievement of this commitment out to 2022 but revised plans indicate a high level of confidence in achieving this.

With increasing A&E attendances, demand and capacity concerns and the impact of Covid-19, it is important that we ensure the NHS is equipped with the resources it needs to meet the challenges of the future. By investing in a professional, highly skilled ambulance workforce, this will help deliver a better service for patients all across Scotland.

The NHS Scotland COVID Status app was released on
‎ 30 September. The App allows users to display their vaccination status for international travel and to gain entry to late night venues and large events within Scotland. To date it has been downloaded over 600,000 times.

Information on the current number of face to face appointments is not held centrally by the Scottish Government as GP practices are responsible for their own patient appointment and consultation arrangements. We are currently working with stakeholders to improve data collection.