The organisation that coordinates health protection in Scotland is no longer providing separate guidance for schools on coronavirus via its website.

Schools are now included in the guidance for “non-healthcare settings”. Other organisations the guidance is aimed at include faith settings, funeral directors and hotels.

The change means that the website links that were originally publicised and promoted by the Scottish government to the Health Protection Scotland website towards the end of last month are no longer working.

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The re-worked guidance says that all educational settings should remain open unless advised by the local health protection team to close and sets out the government’s position in relation to foreign school trips, which is that they should be postponed “until further notice”.

It adds that schools might wish to consider postponing domestic trips that “pose a potential increase in risk, such as those requiring an overnight stay”.

The news follows the UK government cutting the overall length of its Covid-19 guidance for schools by more than two-thirds.

Previously, the Department for Education guidance comprised 14 sections and 2,938 words.

It has now been reduced to a far more concise document, less than a third of that length, at 778 words.

The Scottish guidance for schools can now be found here.