Current Petitions

Agenda item 3 is consideration of current petitions. We have 20 current petitions to consider, the first of which is PE1105, by Marjorie McCance, on behalf of the St Margaret of Scotland Hospice. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to guarantee retention of continuing care provision for patients who require on-going complex medical and nursing care, such as that provided at the 30-bed unit at the St Margaret of Scotland Hospice, and to investigate whether arrangements for funding palliative care provision at hospices in the context of the Scottish Executive’s Health Department letter HDL(2003)18 are fair and reasonable.Des McNulty and Gil Paterson are here to speak to the petition.

I think that every member of the committee apart from the convener has heard me speak to the petition at length. I will not repeat too much of what I have said in the past. I simply re-emphasise that there are strong feelings about how the health board has treated the St Margaret of Scotland Hospice. There are strong feelings about how decisions that affect the hospice were made. We have looked for constructive dialogue between the health board and the hospice, but that has not happened yet, although I understand that the health board has asked to meet the chair of the hospice’s board later this month, so perhaps there is a tiny light at the end of the tunnel. However, we will not be satisfied until further progress is made on the issue. There needs to be a solution because what has happened to the hospice is entirely unfair.I emphasise that St Margaret’s received outstanding results, on every count, in a recent inspection by the Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care. The facility is well supported by everybody in the part of Scotland that I represent and the surrounding area, but it is not being well supported by Greater Glasgow and Clyde NHS Board, and we want that to change. Besides the petition, there have been two debates in the Parliament on the issue. We will continue to press until we get a more satisfactory outcome.As well as the immediate issue about the funding of the hospice and what the health board funds the hospice to provide, the petition raises a second issue about the future funding of adult hospices and the mechanism through which funding is distributed. Members might recall that the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing, Nicola Sturgeon, announced that there would be a working group to look into the issue, which was to report by Christmas. I understand that the cabinet secretary has received the report, but it has not been made public. It has been said that the cabinet secretary will discuss the working group’s report with the working group. That is not satisfactory. If a report has been produced, it should be made public and we should all have an opportunity to look at what it says and what the recommendations are.Given that neither of those matters has been resolved, I hope that the petition will be kept open and that the committee will continue to pursue the issue.

I point out that the committee has considered the petition, which is on a serious issue, 10 times. We have considered 37 submissions and we have heard from local members on no fewer than eight occasions—we are delighted to hear from them again, on a ninth occasion. We have also had a members’ business debate in the Parliament. The focus of the petition has for some time centred mainly on a dispute about funding between the St Margaret of Scotland Hospice and Greater Glasgow and Clyde NHS Board. As members will know, the committee has no locus in that.However, having listened to Des McNulty and Gil Paterson, I think that there are two further things that we could—and I suggest should—do. First, we should write to the health board chief executive, Mr Robert Calderwood, asking him to report back to the committee on the result of the meeting that is to take place later this month between him, or one of his senior staff, and the chair of the hospice board. We would be interested to know whether agreement has at long last broken out given that, as Des McNulty said, the health board initiated that meeting. Perhaps—just perhaps—there is some light at the end of what has been a very long tunnel.Secondly, we should write to the Scottish Government, asking the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing whether she will make public the recommendations of the working group that has been looking at the funding of adult hospices. If she does so, we should ask whether we can have a look at the recommendations for further discussion; if she refuses, we should ask why. On those two bases, I suggest that we continue the petition.

Does the committee agree to continue the petition?Members indicated agreement.