The Scottish Government has been accused of letting down care homes "all over again" after figures showed that staff were still not being tested for Covid-19 on a regular basis.
Health secretary Jeane Freeman announced on May 18 that workers in the care sector would have access to testing regardless of whether or not there has been a confirmed case at their workplace.
Scottish Conservatives leader Jackson Carlaw today raised the example of one care home operator where just 56% of staff had been tested as of this week, while 7% of these came back positive despite showing no symptoms of the virus.
Speaking at First Minister's Questions, the Tory MSP claimed the government's strategy on care homes had been "dither, delay and distract" - adding that every one of the 50,000 staff in Scotland could have been tested twice by now.
It came as new figures revealed the number of Covid-19 deaths in care homes in Scotland has now overtaken those in hospital.
"The First Minister says that widespread testing of care home staff is now underway - I'm afraid it's difficult to believe," Carlaw said.
"There are 50,000 care home workers in Scotland. If they were being tested every week, there would be a minimum of 7,000 tests a day. Yesterday, the total number of tests done for all of Scotland was fewer than 5,000. The day before that it was fewer than 3,000. It doesn't add up.
"First Minister, why are care homes being failed again? Surely by now GPs or mobile testing teams should have visited every care home in Scotland. Is your government letting care homes down all over again?
The First Minister said all the figures on care home testing would be published once "robust and reliable" stats were available, and insisted testing was now underway as a matter of routine.
"I don't consider any death in a care home or anywhere else to be acceptable," she added.
"But we do see now care home deaths, while still too high, declining quite rapidly. We also see from the peak to the middle of May that care home deaths are declining slightly faster than deaths in hospitals.
"I say that as it suggests the package of measures we are taking in care homes is having an effect.
"Testing is important and that's why we've extended the number of groups of people who we are testing. The programme of care home worker testing is underway.
"Is it important we look at the overall number of tests, but it's also important to look at the dynamics underneath that headline number - we have different strands of testing through routine testing and surveillance testing."
The National Records of Scotland (NRS) found a total of 1,818 deaths linked to the virus in care homes since the outbreak began - three more than than the 1,815 deaths that have been recorded in hospitals.
The figures also showed the total number of people dying with the virus has fallen for a fifth week in a row.
