Over the next three months cancer screening programmes and other services halted while the NHS prepared for the risk of being overwhelmed by coronavirus will be reopened under plans published by the Scottish Government today.  

Mental health support and cancer screening programmes are among the services Health Secretary Jeane Freeman has said will be resumed in the coming weeks and months as lockdown measures are eased.

The “cautious, phased and evidence-based” plan – Remobilise, Recover, Re-design – sets out how the NHS will restart services “whose absence is clearly having a detrimental impact on people’s lives”, the Health Secretary Jeane Freeman said today.

The NHS in Scotland was placed on an emergency footing in late March to ensure capacity to deal with a surge in covid-19 cases.

Today’s plan includes those community and hospital-based services that are to set to be resumed over the next 100 days while some capacity is maintained if coronavirus cases start to rise again.

NHS IVF treatment will start again as work continues with four centres to resume services.

Mental health support is to be expanded – “something arguably more important now than ever” in the wake of lockdown, the Health Secretary said.

Emergency dental hubs will extend what care they can provide while dentists continue to prepare to reopen.

Some “urgent” elective surgery that had been postponed will be carried out as Scotland emerges further from lockdown.

Cancer screening and services for managing chronic diseases will also restart.

Ms Freeman said the work to resume paused services would also look to “build on some of the improvements” made as a result of how the NHS adapted to respond to the pandemic.

Efforts will be made to continue virtual consultations rather than face-to-face meetings between clinicians and patients.

Although urgent care services have continued throughout the pandemic – including urgent cancer care, mental health, maternity and paediatric services – there have been calls to get some other services back up and running.

Earlier this month Leading public health expert Professor Linda Bauld told healthandcare.scot a “clear plan” was needed to restart paused services.

As figures published then showed over 1,000 more people had died from conditions like stroke, heart disease and cancer than would normally be expected since the start of pandemic in Scotland, she warned cases of cancer and heart disease were going unchecked and their numbers building up.

Charity Breast Cancer Now reported hearing “unparalleled” levels of distress as thousands of women living with incurable breast cancer contacted their helpline to say they feared they were losing out on precious time with loved ones as their treatment programmes and monitoring programmes had been cancelled.

As warnings circulate about a possible second wave of covid-19 later in the year if lockdown measures prove to have been lifted too soon, the Health Secretary said preparations for next winter were already underway.

She said the next few months would be used to “restock and replenish supplies” as the health service prepared for flu season and the “continued risk” of covid-19.

Nine further deaths of people who had tested positive for coronavirus were reported this morning, taking the total under that measure to 2,362.

 

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