Overview
As a national NHS board operating at the heart of NHSScotland, we’ve been well placed to support the response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic across a wide range of areas.
We’ve rapidly scaled up or adapted our services to meet Scotland’s needs, including:
- significantly growing our national distribution network to deliver PPE and other essential supplies to Scotland’s health and social care sector
- working in partnership to strengthen Scotland’s supply chain resilience, increasing the volume of supplies being manufactured in Scotland and the amount being supplied from abroad
- providing specialist advice, knowledge and expertise to support partnership efforts to rapidly increase testing capacity for COVID-19
- conducting clinical trials to research whether plasma from donors who have recovered from COVID-19, known as ‘convalescent plasma’, is an effective treatment for COVID-19
- ensuring that blood, tissues and cells are available when patients need them, right across the country
- managing the temporary pause of Scotland’s national health screening programmes and coordinating the work to restart screening safely
- providing digital solutions to support NHSScotland and beyond – from online portals to request PPE to rolling out Microsoft Teams to all Scotland’s health boards
- building the NHS Louisa Jordan and ensuring it was ready to meet the country’s needs, as part of a collaborative effort across NHSScotland
As we continue to support Scotland’s COVID-19 response, we’ll update and build on this COVID-19 response section, sharing how our teams are playing their part and supporting Scotland’s health and social care sector.