Hansard

Yesterday was the day that we have all been hoping and waiting for. I am pleased to return to the chamber to update Parliament on the deployment of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine, which is the first such vaccine to receive authorisation to supply from the United Kingdom regulatory body, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.

I have previously set out the advance planning that we have undertaken so that we could be confident that, as soon as the first vaccine supplies arrived, we were ready to begin. Today, I can confirm that we will begin vaccinating from Tuesday 8 December, along with our counterparts across the four nations of the UK.

I also previously set out a number of areas in which we could not finalise our planning because we did not have the final and detailed information. Some of the issues remain, but the authorisation to supply that was received from the MHRA overnight on the 1 December and advised to me in the early morning of 2 December, alongside the final advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation on the Pfizer vaccine that it published yesterday, provides some of that important information.

First, on the overall age range to be vaccinated, the JCVI has asked that we include 16 and 17-year-olds who have underlying health conditions. We will do that and factor those young people into our delivery. Secondly, the MHRA has been clear that we should retain 50 per cent of the supplies that are arriving in December, so that we can provide the second dose to those who have received their first dose in the timeframe advised. Finally, we have detailed information on those for whom the Pfizer vaccine is not advised: women who are pregnant or who plan to become pregnant in the next three months. Those are all vital pieces of information—it might be different for each of the Covid-19 vaccines that the MHRA authorises—which allow us to complete the patients leaflet to support informed patient consent, and the necessary clinical governance protocols and advice to clinical teams.

As I have said throughout, we have worked on a four-nations basis. Yesterday morning, I agreed with my colleague health ministers that, subject to the first batch of approved supplies arriving in time, we will begin the vaccination programme on Tuesday 8 December. On the evening of Monday 7 December, I will discuss with those colleagues where we then are with that process.

Following yesterday’s announcement, between now and next Tuesday, detailed work and discussions will take place on a number of issues, including completion of patient consent work, clinical governance arrangement protocols, safe transportation and storage guidance, data collection and an iterative training process for the clinically accredited staff who will carry out vaccinations. As I speak, the training materials are being finalised by NHS Education for Scotland, using the detail that is now available from the MHRA and the JCVI. The first training sessions are scheduled for tomorrow and Monday, and we will then repeat the process throughout the entire vaccination programme.

As members will know, we will follow the JCVI advice and guidance on priority delivery of the vaccine. The vaccine aims to reduce mortality and morbidity from Covid-19. The guidance prioritises, according to their age, those who are most at risk from harm, and asks us to work our way through to the youngest adults and to take account of those who are clinically vulnerable. The only sectoral exception to that approach is for the health and social care workforce, who are in the first priority group alongside those aged 80 and over and care home residents. Professor Wei Shen Lim, chair of the JCVI’s Covid vaccine sub-group, has said that the aim of vaccinating care home residents and staff, others in order of age from the oldest to the youngest, and healthcare workers is to cover almost 99 per cent of vaccine-preventable deaths from Covid-19, so that is clearly exactly the right approach for us to take.

Members will know that the Pfizer vaccine has specific storage and transportation requirements, which include exceptionally low temperatures and limited transportation times once it has been taken out of a low-temperature environment. It will also come to us in pack sizes of 997 doses. That all poses particular logistical challenges in vaccinating individuals close to their homes, so it will clearly present a challenge in vaccinating our care home residents and our elderly citizens who live in their own homes.

I am pleased to say that, over lunch time today, following detailed discussions led by our chief pharmaceutical officer, we now have confirmation, on the basis of the stability data, that the Pfizer vaccine can be transported in an unfrozen state for up to 12 hours and can be stored undiluted for up to five days. I am also pleased to confirm that, under certain conditions, we will be able to pack supplies down into smaller pack sizes. Both those steps will make the vaccine more usable, with minimum wastage, for care home residents and our older citizens. It means that we will be able to take the vaccine to them, or close to them, and we will begin that exercise from 14 December. From next Tuesday, 8 December, we will begin vaccinating first the vaccinators themselves and then work our way through the first cohorts of health and social care workers.

When the first delivery is received in Scotland, it will go straight to our 23 commercial freezers, which can store the vaccine at the required temperature of -70° and are located across Scotland, including in our important island authority areas.

In the first week of the vaccination programme, we will deliver to priority group individuals who can go to vaccination storage areas. I am delighted that our local authority colleagues will work with us to ensure access to transport for staff who need it. Working in this way in the first week of administration of a new vaccine will also allow our key pharmacy staff to be on hand as we run the process to make up the vials into doses and then vaccinate, as we test out the data recording and clinical governance protocols and work through the pack-down process for the following weeks.

We are therefore ready to implement the national plan that I set out two weeks ago, which sets out the overall policy direction and guidance; provides a delivery framework and service delivery guide; develops and delivers a national workforce model; provides national training; covers procurement and logistics; and provides national information and advice, and the tools to record data about vaccinations when they take place.

Locally, national health service boards’ own delivery planning is well under way. It is putting in place local recruitment and deployment of staff, with boards’ local authority partners identifying locations that are as accessible and local as possible and securing the support that they need—including the national support that we are receiving from the armed services—to set up and manage local centres in a Covid-safe way.

As other vaccines come through the MHRA authorisation and JCVI guidance process, we will flex our planning and delivery to take account of any necessary changes. However, on the basis that we receive the vaccine supply that we expect when we expect it, we should be able to vaccinate the first phase of people by spring next year. The rest of the adult population will follow as quickly as possible thereafter.

Our workforce planning and recruitment is on track to secure the 2,000 vaccinators and support staff we will need by the end of January. An existing core of trained and experienced vaccinators from the flu programme will transition to the Covid vaccination during this month and next, we are actively recruiting from the emergency registers and NHS Scotland’s accelerated recruitment portal, and we are drawing from the wider clinical workforce of general practitioners, pharmacists, dentists and optometrists. From Tuesday next week, we will need 160 whole-time equivalent vaccinators per day to begin delivery—and we have them.

All that work for next week and the weeks beyond that will be overseen by me and senior officials. I am delighted that Councillor Stuart Currie will join us from Convention of Scottish Local Authorities to ensure that we can maximise the input and expertise that our local authority colleagues will bring to the nationwide exercise.

As we progress in what will be a fast-paced exercise, we will, as the First Minister said, make every effort to keep members updated on both the national picture and their local arrangements, making initial information available from next week. My colleague Joe FitzPatrick as public health minister will oversee that and take on the additional work of responding to any local issues that members raise.

A significant part of that information will be on the safety and efficacy of this vaccine and the others that will follow. However, let me be clear that, in the MHRA authorising the vaccine for supply, no corners have been cut. The process has been as rigorous and robust as it always is and as we would expect it to be. Over the coming weeks, we will be issuing clear information to the public, not only on the safety and efficacy of the vaccine but on our delivery plans nationally and, importantly, locally. We need—as best we can, given the caveats that I have set out on delivery and vaccine properties—to be clear in our plans so that everyone knows what to expect and when they are likely to receive their invitation to be vaccinated.

A vaccination programme of this scale is a significant logistical challenge and it requires a major nationwide effort, but we undertake it with optimism and a determination to succeed. I have no doubt that there will be glitches on the way and unexpected difficulties to overcome, but science has excelled yet again to give us hope. Now we will get on to deliver on that. I look forward to working with members across the chamber in that work.