The Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee will conclude its work in March 2026 ahead of the next Scottish Parliament election. While it will continue to meet, the Committee has agreed it will not consider petitions submitted after 10 October. This is to ensure all petitions currently in the system can be considered before the next Scottish Parliament election. It is also unlikely that the Committee would be able to schedule and meaningfully progress petitions submitted after 10 October before the election. Contact the Committee team at petitions.committee@parliament.scot for more information about the petitions process.
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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.