Today, a group of members of Parliament on the House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee said that there should be weekly routine testing of all national health service staff, and that they cannot understand why it has not been introduced. Since the very start of the crisis, I have believed that we should be doing that. The Majority of NHS staff in Scotland have never been tested. Why are we not doing routine weekly testing of the people who are on the front line and keeping people safe and alive during the pandemic?

We test certain groups of NHS staff and, like all the groups that we test across the population, the groups that we test are advised by clinical priority. We will continue to look at options for extending that.

The capacity for testing is important. We need to have the capacity to take the samples and process the tests. We have expanded NHS capacity substantially and we plan to do more of that over the remainder of the year. That will make the wherewithal available, but who is tested and how often must be driven by clinical advice and prioritisation. We will continue to take those decisions as carefully as possible.

I have not yet had the opportunity to see the select committee’s report, but I will read it with interest.