Current Petitions

I ask for members’ permission to deal with PE1105 first. Gil Paterson wants to speak to it, but at quarter past 2 he has another committee meeting at which a particularly sensitive issue will be dealt with. Are members happy to consider PE1105 first?Members indicated agreement.

PE1105 is from Marjorie McCance, on behalf of the St Margaret of Scotland Hospice. Do members have any suggestions on how to proceed with it? At this juncture, it will be useful to bring in Des McNulty and Gil Paterson to speak to the petition. I ask them to be as brief as possible.

I appreciate that the committee is frustrated that the petition keeps coming back to it, but the reason for that is that we have not really made the progress that requires to be made.The petition is in two parts. One part deals with overall hospice funding. Some work has been done on that, but it has not yet been made public. I asked the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing a question about that work around three or four weeks ago. I think that a document is still circulating among interested stakeholders and officials, but it has not yet been made public. That document might deal with that part of the petition.The other part of the petition, which is probably the more controversial part, deals with Greater Glasgow and Clyde NHS Board’s proposal to remove funding from the 30 continuing care beds at St Margaret’s. My constituents are firmly opposed to that, and I am sure that colleagues will tell committee members that the issue is not only a Clydebank and Milngavie issue; it is relevant more widely in the west of Scotland. We believe that the hospice has been very badly treated and that things have gone on for far too long, and we want the cabinet secretary to intervene and the health board to come up with a viable solution. We believe that the petition is part of the process of putting pressure on health boards to be reasonable. I urge committee members to keep it open and to pursue the reasonable aim of arranging a meeting involving Greater Glasgow and Clyde NHS Board and hospice board representatives. I think that committee members agreed to do that at the previous meeting, but as far as I am aware, no such meeting has yet taken place. We need to resolve the issue, which is important to the people of the west of Scotland.

Right. Can I have some views please?

I am happy to continue the petition until we have had the report from the Scottish Government. We have a letter from Jean Anne Mitchell in response to some of the submissions, and I think that questions could be asked of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. I believed that there was on-going dialogue, but the letter questions whether we can call the usual quarterly meetings to talk about everything that is happening in the hospice on-going dialogue on the specific point about the reduction in funding.

Does the committee agree?Members indicated agreement.

The petition will be continued. I thank Des McNulty and Gil Paterson for their attendance.