No SNP Ministers or Government officials have met with the company responsible for much of the vaccine rollout in Scotland, it is revealed in a response to Scottish Conservative MSP Stephen Kerr.
The company, ServiceNow, is an American IT company headquartered in California. They earned revenue of $4.5bn in 2020.
ServiceNow won a contract with the Scottish Government to provide the digital backbone of its program to rapidly roll out the vaccine. Their key task is arranging appointments for vaccinations.
The vaccination programme in Scotland has met with criticism for sending letters to people who are already double vaccinated, posting vaccine invites to student halls of residence to people who left years ago, and missing others entirely. There is also a problem with appointments; last month half of people with appointments didn’t turn up to the Glasgow SECC for their vaccine(1).
Stephen Kerr MSP said:
“It seems the SNP Government are happy to set and forget vital services such as our vaccine rollout. It’s disappointing that the concerns I know have been raised around the invite system for COVID vaccines haven’t been passed on to ServiceNow by Government Ministers.
The decision was made to privatise this aspect of the NHS, and the Scottish Government have not justified their actions in any way.”
The question:
SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT
18 June 2021
Index Heading: Health and Social Care
Stephen Kerr (Central Scotland) (Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party): To Ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide details of any meetings held between (a) the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care or (b) its officials and ServiceNow of Santa Clara, California, regarding the performance of the vaccination appointment service that it is delivering as a partner to the Scottish Government.
Humza Yousaf: Neither the Cabinet Secretary for Health & Social Care, nor Scottish Government officials have engaged with ServiceNow. NHS National Services Scotland are responsible for the development and operational performance of the Service Now platform which is used as part of the overall digital solution for Covid Vaccinations, and it is for NHS National Services Scotland to manage the performance of their suppliers.