³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ

Diagnostic codes for post-COVID-19 syndrome, or long COVID, were recently added into the primary care information systems used by GP practices. Guidance on coding has been issued to GP Practices, most recently in the Scottish Government ‘Implementation Support Note’ published on the SIGN website.

NHS Education for Scotland has an educational session, which covers long COVID, scheduled in August as part of its series of online webinars for primary care clinicians. All of their resources for health and care staff related to COVID-19 can be found on their dedicated Turas Learn Site ( ). In addition to their own resources, they plan to signpost through Turas Learn to appropriate resources on long COVID developed by partner organisations as these emerge.

The University of Edinburgh’s EAVE II project has used pseudonymised GP and other patient data to track the COVID-19 pandemic as it unfolded across Scotland, and its analysis has helped inform Scottish Government policy.

That project now has funding from the Scottish Government’s Chief Scientist Office to use this pseudonymised data to investigate long COVID. The project will generate analysis on the number of people assessed as having long COVID. This analysis will be shared with the Scottish Government and will be used to inform the planning of services for people with long COVID. The analysis will inform publications on long COVID in due course.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) provides details on the number of people who have been vaccinated by Health Board and age profile. This information is detailed here .

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-00341 on 17th June 2021, which states details concerning contractual arrangements for UK MoD projects are a matter for the UK Government and BAE Systems.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at /chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), which is the UK body responsible for ensuring that medicines and medical devices work and are acceptably safe, and the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), an independent clinical group of experts that provides all Governments in the UK with advice on vaccinations, both concur that the evidence shows that, overall, the benefits of vaccination, including vaccinating the under 30 year olds, outweigh the risks. In coming to this conclusion, both organisations looked in detail at all the evidence from the clinical trials undertaken by the pharmaceutical companies and the post-approval authorisation monitoring of the vaccines. The JCVI also reviewed and took into consideration the latest available evidence on the current UK COVID-19 infection rate, the scale and pace of the vaccine programme and modelling of the timing and size of any likely third pandemic wave. It is important that all those who are eligible and advised to be vaccinated take up the offer of a vaccine, and complete the course for maximum protection.

The NHS Research Scotland infrastructure funded by the Scottish Government Chief Scientist Office is supporting a number of studies on the longer term effects of COVID-19 infection. These include the UK-wide Post-hospitalisation COVID-19 study (PHOSP-COVID) led by the University of Leicester that is recruiting individuals who were discharged from hospital following COVID-19 to study the short (0-6 months), medium (6-12 months) and long-term (12 months +) effects of the disease

On December 22 2020, the Chief Scientist Office announced the outcome of its funding call for Scottish-led research on the long-term effects of COVID-19 infection. Following a competitive independently peer reviewed process 9 Long-covid research projects were funded with a total funding commitment of around £2.5 million. Details of the funded projects are available from the Chief Scientist Office website

Our approach is for people to have access to the support they need for assessment, diagnosis, care and rehabilitation in a setting that is as close to their home as possible.

NHS Boards across Scotland are co-ordinating and providing local pathways from primary, community care and third sector services to ensure a multidisciplinary and person-centred approach in their area.

Whilst long COVID clinics are one model that NHS Boards may explore in doing so, we recognise that no one single approach is likely to fit all areas and circumstances.

Details of defence programme contractual arrangements are reserved and a matter between individual companies and the UK Government.

Information on contracts awarded through the UK Government Ministry of Defence are published and publicly available.

It is crucial that the decisions we take are based on the latest available evidence and are aligned to clinical guidance.

Our approach is for people to have access to the support they need for assessment, diagnosis, care and rehabilitation in a setting that is as close to their home as possible.

NHS Boards across Scotland are co-ordinating and providing local pathways to ensure a multidisciplinary and person-centred approach in their area.

Additionally, we invested over £460,000 in Chest, Heart and Stroke Scotland to enable them to deliver their ‘Long COVID support service’ which complements the support being provided by NHS Scotland.

The Scottish Government’s Chief Scientist Office has also committed around £2.5 million to fund nine projects to improve our understanding of the long term effects of COVID-19 on physical and mental health and wellbeing in Scotland, and help with developing effective clinical interventions to support recovery and rehabilitation.

The number of Allied Health Professionals with a specialty of Therapeutic Radiography working for NHS Scotland at the end of each financial year since 2015-16 can be found in the following table:

NHSScotland Allied Health Professionals with a specialty of Therapeutic Radiography (Bands 5-9), Staff in post (Whole Time Equivalent) For the period March 2016 to March 2021.

Referrals to Scotland’s first Early Cancer Diagnostic Centres (ECDC) went live in NHS Dumfries & Galloway on 17 May 2021, NHS Fife on 7 June 2021, with NHS Ayrshire & Arran due to come on stream on 21 June 2021. Wider roll-out will be determined by an independent evaluation overseen by the multi-disciplinary Oversight Group for the Centres.