The Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee will conclude its work this Parliament in March 2026 ahead of the next Scottish Parliament election. So the Committee has time to complete its work, it has agreed not to consider petitions submitted after 10 October.
The Committee will continue to meet but given the volume of petitions and agreed work programme it is unlikely that the Committee would be able to meaningfully progress work on petitions submitted after 10 October ahead of the election. Petitions lodged after this date will not fall when the Parliament is dissolved and will be for the successor committee to consider in the new session.
If you are seeking urgent action or policy change please contact one of your 8 MSPs or the Scottish Government directly.
Under consideration PE2071: Take action to protect people from airborne infections in health and social care settings
Calling on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to:
improve air quality in health and social care settings through addressing ventilation, air filtration and sterilisation;
reintroduce routine mask-wearing in those settings, particularly respiratory masks;
reintroduce routine Covid testing;
ensure staff manuals fully cover preventing airborne infection;
support ill staff to stay home;
provide public health information on the use of respiratory masks and the HEPA air filtration against airborne infections.
Previous action taken
I have:
met with my constituency MSP, suggested PQs
met and corresponded with lead officials on masking, ventilation, vaccination and clinical risk
submitted FoI requests
requested meeting with Antimicrobal Resistance and Healthcare Associated Infection Scotland (declined).
I have met with the Director for Strategy, Governance and Performance at Public Health Scotland.
Background information
Infections like Covid, flu, Respiratory Syncytial Virus Infection, measles and TB spread by inhaling tiny airborne aerosols hanging in the air like smoke. Key ways to prevent it are to improve air quality and wear well-fitting respiratory masks. Reinfection increases risk of long-term serious damage potentially for anyone, to brain, heart, immune system, etc. Care workers top the long Covid league. Repeated illness and job loss put avoidable pressure on services. The rate of hospital acquired Covid infection has been shown to be higher than in the community (ARHAI ceased collecting that data in March, prior to the removal of masking guidance in May). Clinically vulnerable people often must use care but some are cancelling essential health appointments. Transmission is often asymptomatic. Covid isn’t seasonal. Routine testing is thus essential. There are many tools to protect health and the NHS. Only one is being used: vaccination – which is unavailable to many, including some clinically vulnerable people.
905 signatures
This petition is now under consideration
Click here for further information about the consideration of this petition.