Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at on 10 June 2020.
This is about people on the front line. Without a vaccine, care homes, which are full of the vulnerable, will always be at the heart of the proactive strategy that we need to pursue on coronavirus.
To take one example, we learned yesterday that NHS Borders is now telling the Scottish Government that it does not have the capacity to carry out tests in care homes in its area. Care home owners in towns such as Castle Douglas say that none of their staff have been tested, unlike those in England, a few miles across the border.
We learned yesterday from Scottish Borders Council that it has received only 480 testing kits to cover all 1,200 staff in its local care homes.
Will the First Minister explain how it will be possible to test all care home staff, when health boards are given fewer than half the number of test kits that they need?