Withdrawal of the 'Coronavirus (COVID-19): use of face coverings in social care settings including adult care homes' guidance: Equality Impact Assessment

Stage 4: Decision making and monitoring

Identifying and establishing any required mitigating action

Have positive or negative impacts been identified for any of the equality groups?

There is no unlawful discrimination identified. Positive impacts have been identified for two of the equality groups, Age and Disability. For some subsets of the Disability equality group (e.g., those who are immunocompromised) there may be some concern about the removal of the temporary policy.

Is the policy directly or indirectly discriminatory under the Equality Act 2010? No.

If the policy is indirectly discriminatory, how is it justified under the relevant legislation? Not applicable.

If not justified, what mitigating action will be undertaken? Not applicable.

Describing how Equality Impact analysis has shaped the policy making process

This EQIA has been done to ensure that the equalities impacts that were informally considered as part of the development of this policy (the removal of the ‘Coronavirus (COVID-19): use of face coverings in social care settings including adult care homes’ guidance) are adequately captured formally.

The outcome of this EQIA would highlight action to be taken and amendments be made to current policies, if necessary.

The EQIA has not identified any differential impact that would have indicated that this temporary policy should not be removed.

Although any future changes to guidance on the use of PPE (including face masks) for social care will sit with ARHAI (Scotland), this work will be shared with them to help inform any future changes and the National Infection Prevention and Control Manual that is reviewed regularly.

Monitoring and Review

The Scottish Government recognises that surveillance of respiratory infections is a critical part of our approach to monitoring and managing the spread and prevalence of COVID-19 and other respiratory viruses in Scotland. As such we support both Public Health Scotland and National Services Scotland Antimicrobial Resistance Healthcare Associated Infection (ARHAI) to undertake surveillance activity.

This surveillance helps us to determine the right public health strategies and timing, to manage transmission in the community. Public Health Scotland (PHS) is responsible for delivering Scotland’s National Respiratory Surveillance Plan (publichealthscotland.scot) with the support of the Scottish Government.

In Scotland, respiratory infection levels and their impact are monitored using various sources of data, including microbiological sampling and laboratory test results from community and hospital settings, NHS 24 calls, primary care consultations, and hospital admissions. The intelligence generated from these different data sources provide a comprehensive picture of current respiratory illness in Scotland.

It may be helpful to note that epidemiological information on seasonal respiratory infection activity in Scotland including COVID-19 is published online by PHS in their National Respiratory Infection and COVID-19 Statistical Report (Viral respiratory diseases (including influenza and COVID-19) in Scotland surveillance report 2 May 2024 - Viral respiratory diseases (including influenza and COVID-19) in Scotland surveillance report - Publications - Public Health Scotland) with the data updated through the PHS interactive dashboard which can be found at COVID-19 & Respiratory Surveillance.

ARHAI is responsible for the development and publishing of the National Infection Prevention and Control Manual (NIPCM). The NIPCM is updated real time with any changes required to be made to guidance as a result of the quarterly evidence reviews and our 3 yearly full literature reviews. ARHAI Scotland also has the ability to monitor respiratory activity via the outbreak reporting tool which trigger considerations and discussions regarding any additional precautions.

The Scottish Government works closely with both PHS and ARHAI. If data gathered through routine surveillance indicates the need to consider enhanced public health mitigations (in this case the reintroduction of routine facemask/ face covering use in health and social care settings) then PHS and/ or ARHAI will offer this recommendation as part of their advice to Scottish Government to help shape any policy change.