Question reference: S5W-28451
- Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
- Date lodged: 16 April 2020
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Current status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 25 June 2020
Question
To ask the Scottish Government what action it took to ensure that care homes and nursing homes were provided with adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Answer
In both the private and public sectors the supply of PPE is primarily the responsibility of social care providers themselves, including care homes. However, when these private supply chains failed we set up from the 19th of March provision to make PPE supplies available from our national NHS stock.
To make sure that we could get the right PPE to the right people, we created direct distribution routes, including local PPE hubs for social care providers, which covers care homes. That was and continues to be a remarkable logistical achievement by the people who are involved. This is supporting the whole social care sector including care homes, with their PPE needs where their normal supply routes fail. Through these routes collectively, over 65 million items of PPE have been distributed to over 1,000 locations across Scotland for social care to date.
At present, the PPE top ups through the Hubs are being provided free of charge to all social care providers, including care homes which have consumed the majority of the over 65 million items of PPE distributed to date.