Enhanced surveillance of COVID-19 in Scotland - community surveillance protocol
Version 8.2

​In order to help us understand more about COVID-19, Public Health Scotland has developed a strategy to gather information. This will enable us to measure how effective public health interventions are, such as lockdown, social distancing and shielding. It will also help us understand how well we are flattening the curve of the pandemic in Scotland. This will help us prevent illness and save lives. 

We have several programmes to help us gather this information. The first to launch in April 2020 was the Community Surveillance Programme, which is an adaptation of our usual GP Influenza surveillance scheme. This gathered up to 1000 samples every week from across Scotland from people who have mild to moderate COVID-19 like symptoms. The samples were also tested for flu and Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV). 

We aim to gather 500 samples per week from people who have attended clinical assessment centres, and 500 samples from people who have been triaged by the COVID-19 telephone triage hubs. 

We have developed a protocol, which is an iterative document, so please ensure you have the latest version. Please complete the digital surveillance form​ with patients, or give the patient the community surveillance flyer for them to complete the survey themselves.

For further information see the following:

• CMO letter dated 21 July 2021, on the Scottish Government Health and Social Care Directorates website
• our most recent report and infographic, the Enhanced Surveillance of COVID-19 in Scotland – Community Surveillance in ​Primary Care Settings on the Public Health Scotland website
• the Community Acute Respiratory Infection (CARI) - surveilllance protocol for winter 2021 to 2022 is also now available