I have been contacted by a number of constituents who are becoming increasingly concerned about the roll-out of the Covid-19 vaccination programme in Edinburgh and about the inconsistencies relating to people in different age groups being called to be vaccinated. I have raised those concerns with the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport. I appreciate that there will be some overlap within age groups, but there seems to be confusion about when those in the 60 to 65-year-old age group will receive their vaccination in Edinburgh.

I am sure that the First Minister agrees that it would be unacceptable for NHS Lothian residents to be behind those in other health board areas. What additional resources will NHS Lothian receive? Will she investigate the situation? Why is the Scottish Government not publishing age-specific vaccination uptake figures for health boards?

As I have said, we will continue to break down, as far as we can, the information that is published. Earlier today, I said that, as of tomorrow, Public Health Scotland will improve its reporting, so we continue to try to improve the granularity of the data that is published.

The vaccination programme is going better than we ever anticipated. More people have been vaccinated than we anticipated at the start of the year. That said, I absolutely understand, and identify with, people’s anxiety about getting their appointments as quickly as possible.

I can understand the concern if people know somebody in a younger age group who has been vaccinated ahead of them. I will make two points about that. If that is the case, it is likely to be because the person in the younger age group has an underlying health condition that gives them the same level of priority as the older person.

There is also a practical issue. If we were to work through people in a strictly chronological order and to not start vaccinating, for example, 55 to 59-year-olds until we had completed vaccinating 60 to 64-year-olds, the problem that Jamie Greene put to me—a bit unjustly, if I may say so—would become a real problem, because we would not be using vaccines as quickly as we could. Vaccines would be sitting on the stocks if we took that approach. We are taking the approach that we are taking to get to people as quickly as we possibly can.

Forty-five per cent of 60 to 64-year-olds have been vaccinated already. Others in that group will get their vaccination appointments on an on-going basis. General appointments will start going out to those in the 55 to 59-year-old and 50 to 54-year-old age groups. If people in those age groups have already been vaccinated, it is likely to be because they have an underlying health condition.

I know that the approach that we are taking can create anomalies in people’s minds, but it is the best and quickest way to get through people as speedily as possible. That is why I can stand here and say—with a considerable degree of confidence—that, assuming that there is no unexpected interruption to supplies, everybody in the country who is over 50, every unpaid carer and every adult with an underlying health condition will have had the first dose of the vaccine by mid-April, and that, assuming that supplies allow it, the whole adult population will have been offered the first dose by the end of July.