JEANE Freeman has warned councils not to axe social care packages for the elderly and vulnerable during the Covid lockdown. 

The Health Secretary said it was “not acceptable” that some local authorities were scaling back hoem care packages, or in some cases withdrawing them completely.

She said it was critical that social care support was maintained “to ensure the safety, dignity and human rights of people” who already received it.

The BBC's  Disclosure programme found thousands of care packages had been withdrawn as councils focused on those in "critical need". 

It found 1884 clients cut by Glasgow (34 per cent), and visits down by 4589, or 27%, in Inverclyde.

Ms Freeman told MSPs council had been given the money to meet both new and existing demand.

She said: “In addition to the funding directed towards social care from the 2020/21 budget, I reached agreement some weeks ago with [council umbrella group] Cosla that we would meet additional costs incurred because of the impact of the pandemic. 

“That agreement was specifically reached to ensure that both existing and new demand and need could be met. 

“Alongside this, those additional returning staff I mentioned a moment ago are also available for deployment to these services to ensure staffing resilience.

“So it is not acceptable to me that care packages are cut - in some instances by 100 per cent. 

“I expect the steps I have already taken to be used and if there is more that needs to be done to ensure existing packages are not cut and new demand is met, then I hope that colleagues in the sector know that my door is always open and I expect them to come to me with those additional requirements.”

She said the Government had been in contact with the councils which had cut care packages and asked them what other resources they needed, however she regretted not all had responded.

She said: "We will continue to press very hard so that they reinstate these care packages, bearing in mind their stautory obligations in this regard."

In a statement to the Holyrood chamber, Ms Freeman also said that carers, both paid and unpaid would be able to get PPE distributed by local hubs from this week. 

She said there “promising signs” that the efforts and sacrifices people had made were having an impact, with stable numbers of people in hospital and a decline in ICU patients.

She said: “We should not read too much into all of this yet. These are early days. But these trends are both welcome and cautiously hopeful.” 

However she also admitted that the Scottish Government may not use all its increased testing capacity when it hits a capacity of 3500 per day later this month.

Asked by Green MSP Alison Johnstone if she could confirm the capacity would be “fully  utilised”, Ms Freeman said: “We are working hard to ensure that the demand is flowing through in order to use that capacity, and we intend to be at least as close to that 3500 as we can get to in the next few days.”