THIS crisis has proven that there is a vital role for everyone in helping us get through it whether that is on the front lines of our NHS, keeping the food supply going, ensuring that our national infrastructure remains in place or crucially staying at home and helping to slow the spread of the virus.

And Scotland’s manufacturing base is no exception. Over the past few weeks we have seen numerous businesses step up to support the national effort and ensure a secure supply of NHS essentials.

Similarly there is a vast amount of work happening right across Government and academia working in partnership with industry, to ensure we can deliver what is needed, when it is needed.

As part of that collective effort, over the last month I have been leading a working group to help ensure NHS critical supply shortages are overcome and supply chains remain resilient in response to Covid-19, particularly around ventilators and intensive care equipment, personal protective equipment, hand sanitisers and testing.

Together with partners including Scottish Enterprise, NHS Scotland and the National Manufacturing Institute for Scotland we are working with a range of Scottish businesses to meet the exceptionally high demand for NHS supplies.

Adopting a dynamic approach, we are working to source equipment from alternative supply chains, domestically and internationally, whilst simultaneously boosting our own domestic supply capability to augment existing NHS supply chain capability.

This is complex work, and something that has never been done before on this scale and in these timescales, but Scotland is rising to the challenge and we are beginning to see results.

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To date we have received a total of 1300 offers of support from businesses. This huge response is testament to the willingness of the Scottish business community to help us tackle the crisis. We have built a team, with relevant product knowledge and technical expertise, to be able to respond to and correctly channel these offers subject to conformance to specifications and quality standards.

From these offers we have been able to secure vital equipment at volume, and to tackle key manufacturing challenges.

We are working around the clock to respond to all the offers, however we are, understandably, prioritising those items where the need from our front line services is greatest, and where we can see the quickest route to significant volume of supply being realised.

We ask businesses who have made offers of support to know that all offers are being assessed and where they are able to contribute to our efforts the team will be in touch to follow-up.We have seen Scottish companies diversify from producing whisky to producing hand sanitiser, electronics firms repurpose production lines and subsea specialists turn to making ventilators in a timescale unimaginable in normal times.

And last weekend we saw an aircraft land at Prestwick Airport from China bringing in even more supplies from overseas including around 10 million face masks as well as infusion pumps for intensive care units and virus collecting kits for use in health laboratories.

Protecting staff working on the frontline is an absolute priority which is why we have been working at pace with the NHS and manufacturers both in Scotland and internationally to improve and increase the supply of PPE.

The charter flight bringing additional equipment is a landmark in this process and we will be focusing the distribution of these supplies to health and social care settings over the coming days.

Make no mistake, every single one of these actions – whether it be an individual company in Scotland shifting focus, or the sourcing of goods from overseas – is absolutely crucial to ensuring we have the vital equipment we need in Scotland as we continue to tackle this devastating disease.

I am proud to see Scotland coming together in this way, using all levers at our disposal. It is yet another reason our innovative, adaptable and responsive business base is world renowned, and moreover, it is this spirit that will see us overcome this unprecedented challenge.