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As we see children return to school after summer I understand how important it is for families to feel involved, especially where children are attending school for the first time. However, as we monitor the impact of important changes to self-isolation policies amongst children and young people, it is also important that we continue to minimise the risks of infection and transmission in the school environment.

Updated guidance, published on 3 August, makes clear that visitors to schools should be agreed in advance and arrangements appropriately risk-assessed. Parents/carers may accompany children onto school premises where this is agreed with the school and strictly necessary to support children and young people, for example where there are concerns about individual children making a successful transition from Early Learning and Childcare to P1. Otherwise, where virtual arrangements for parental engagement are already in place and working well, these should continue to be used.

The updated guidance is available at the following link: . These arrangements will be kept under careful review, and are expected to be in place for up to six weeks at the start of the new term.

The Scottish Government currently only allows travellers returning from green and amber list countries to use NHS tests, arranged through the CTM booking portal, as they are the highest quality with established data flows into NHS boards and samples are sequenced to ensure early detection of variants of concern.

Travellers arriving in other parts of the UK can access the NHS tests, however those arriving in England and Northern Ireland are also able to access private test providers who charge a range of prices.

The Scottish Government is exploring ways to allow private testing for travellers coming to Scotland provided we are confident in the flow of data into contact tracing services and that all positive test results are analysed to identify any variants of concern.

The Scottish Government currently only allows travellers returning from green and amber list countries to use NHS tests, delivered through the UK Government’s contract with the travel management company CTM. These tests are the highest quality with established data flows into NHS boards and samples are sequenced to ensure early detection of variants of concern.

The Covid-19 test kits are home PCR kits provided by NHS Test & Trace. The cost of the kits is set by the UK Government and the process managed through its contract with the travel management company CTM.

Currently, the Scottish Government does not allow use of private test providers for international travellers arriving into Scotland from green and amber list countries.

We are having on-going discussions with the UK government on using private test providers and exploring ways to allow private testing for travellers coming to Scotland provided we are confident in the flow of data into contact tracing services and that all positive test results are analysed to identify any variants of concern.

The latest data cut of 22.07.2021 showed 262 active Cancer Clinical Trials in Scotland. On that date there were 22 Covid-19 suspended Cancer Clinical Trials.

The primary aim of the Scottish Government throughout the pandemic has been to protect people in Scotland against the direct and tragic harm to health which the virus causes, including against long-COVID as we know that the virus affects people’s health in different ways.

Every phase of easing COVID-19 restrictions is considered on a “Four Harms” basis – namely (1) the direct harm caused by the virus; (2) the impact of the virus on broader health and wellbeing; (3) social harms arising from measures necessary to suppress the virus; and (4) damage to the economy. A consideration of the impact of lifting restrictions on the number of people developing long-COVID is at the core of “Harm 1”.

Throughout the pandemic, we have published evidence in support of our decision-making. Impact assessments have been published to accompany regulations since the Strategic Framework was first introduced. They will continue to be a key publication where appropriate whenever regulatory changes are made.

Our initial plan for moving of all of Scotland to Level 0 was delayed in order to allow more people to be fully vaccinated and also to assess the impact of the Delta variant on case numbers and hospital admissions. We have now moved to Level 0 but with an added degree of caution. These decisions have prioritised a careful and gradual approach and taken into account the high prevalence of long-COVID especially amongst young people. This is a concerning trend which we are closely monitoring and, therefore, justifies the cautious easing of restrictions we are pursuing.

The Scottish Government’s Primary care Directorate meets weekly with the Scottish General Practitioners Committee of the BMA to discuss a range of issues including Covid related issues such as long Covid.

NHS Boards are developing pathways according to local services and the needs of their respective populations, to support people with long COVID. We continue to invest in and expand multidisciplinary teams in primary care consisting of health and care professionals that play a key role in the provision of rehabilitation services.

Since the publication of the rehabilitation framework in August 2020, we have established a National Advisory Board to oversee its implementation.

The rehabilitation programme is currently undertaking a significant scoping exercise through a self-assessment process to understand the current status of rehabilitation services in Scotland, from the perspective of the staff working in them.

The self-assessment tool has been circulated to all NHS Boards, Health & Social Care Partnerships, third sector organisations, and Leisure Trusts as part of Local Authorities.

The outputs from the self-assessment tool along with demand and capacity data will help us shape priorities, understand challenges and opportunities and inform funding decisions.

The most recent long COVID statistics published by the Office for National Statistics on 1 July 2021 state that, over the four-week period ending 6 June 2021, an estimated 962,000 people living in private households in the UK reported experiencing long COVID (symptoms persisting more than four weeks after the first suspected coronavirus (COVID-19) episode that are not explained by something else). Of those people, an estimated 81,000 lived in Scotland. Detailed estimates by age are available for the UK at .This detail is not available for Scotland.

We do not currently have for Scotland a breakdown of people experiencing symptoms of long COVID by age, or according to whether or not they were originally hospitalised due to the virus. We are working with the EAVE II project, on which the University of Edinburgh and Public Health Scotland collaborate. Funded by the Medical Research Council, this project used pseudonymised GP and other patient data to track the COVID-19 pandemic as it unfolded across Scotland. This dataset is now being used in a separate project funded by the Chief Scientist Office to investigate long COVID, and will generate analysis of people assessed as having long COVID. Early results will be available later in 2021.

This information is not currently available. Weekly updated data on the proportion of the NHS workforce reported absent for all COVID-19 related reasons in total is available at:

Following the publication of the review of the Cervical screening standards in March 2019 NHS Boards should ensure that individuals referred to the colposcopy service with an abnormal screening test are seen within the nationally agreed time frames:

• no later than 2 weeks for urgent referrals (glandular, suspicion of invasion)
• no later than 4 weeks for high grade referrals, and
• no later than 8 weeks for low grade referrals that do not require urgent assessment.

On the 30 March 2020 the Cervical Screening Programme was temporarily paused to due to impact of the COVID-19 pandemic with services resuming on 29 June 2020. However, the need for additional infection control measures, including physical distancing and the use of PPE, continue to pose challenges but the Scottish Government are working with Health Boards to monitor and address these. During the screening programme restart, the Scottish Government provided £1 million to support capacity in sample-taking and colposcopy.

Further information regarding the standards for this procedure and the wider Cervical screening standard can be found in the Healthcare Improvement Scotland publication linked below.

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