Petition PE572, which is from Patrick and Jennifer Woods, calls on the Scottish Parliament to investigate whether there is within Scotland adequate provision of homes that have no upper age limit and which provide respite care for sufferers of multiple sclerosis and other disabling conditions.On 7 October, we wrote to the Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care and to the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities for further information. The response from the care commission is attached. COSLA's response states that COSLA does not hold the information that we requested, but some information on each local authority is provided thereafter.Have members any comments?
Official Report · Committee
Petitions
Multiple Sclerosis (Respite Homes) (PE572)
Speakers
Choose an MSP to read only their contributions- Janis Hughes Lab 5
- Shona Robison SNP 2
- Kate Maclean Lab 1
The record
8 contributionsThe list of local authorities is not comprehensive and seems to contain only those from which COSLA managed to get information. We do not yet have the full picture on the Scotland-wide situation on respite care for people with MS, so perhaps we need to consider other ways of doing that.The care commission said that it will be able to give us the information only once its data collection systems are more comprehensively established and contain the information, so we need to consider other ways of getting the information. I suppose that going directly to each local authority is the most obvious way to do that. To do the petition justice, we need to get the Scotland-wide picture; we have only part of the picture at the moment.
I do not disagree with that but, as Kate Maclean said when we discussed the petition previously, our difficulty is that local authorities are not the only providers of such care. If we cannot get the information from the care commission because it is not far enough advanced as an organisation to have established its data collection, we will still not get the full picture even if we seek information from every local authority. I am not sure how we should deal with that.
Even if the care commission does not have the information, would not each local authority's social work department be likely to have information on providers that they use within their areas?
We might have to make it clear to local authorities that we also want to know about the facilities that they use rather than just those that they run.
I think that we could certainly get more information than we have at the moment. Social work departments would be able to get details about places to which they make referrals. However, because there is such a lack of facilities, local authorities often make referrals outwith their own areas. I do not know who would collate all that information. It might be quite complicated.I am surprised that the care commission is unable to give us more information. We could make another approach to the care commission to find out whether there is any way we could be provided with the information. The petition has merit, given the lack of respite facilities for adults with specific needs, who are often in nursing homes in which there are people who are frail and suffering from dementia. It might help if we were to approach the care commission and ask local authorities to which establishments they make referrals, although there will always be people who make private arrangements and never have contact with social work departments. I suspect that we will not get 100 per cent of the information, but something would be better than the information that we have at present.
Is it agreed that we contact local authorities again to ask them for more detailed information, and that we also seek information from the care commission? The commission states that it hopes"to be able to respond more fully to information requests of this type"in the future. We may wish to ask when, because it might be the case that we need information of this kind again.Members indicated agreement.
That is the end of the on-going petitions.
In this meeting
Everything on 13 Jan 2004 →- Scottish Parliament Health Committee Tuesday 13 January 2004 (Afternoon) Committee business · 1
- Item in Private Procedure · 6
- Petitions Petitions · 1
- Petitions Petitions · 6
- Petitions Petitions · 13
- Petitions Petitions · 4
- Petitions Petitions · 33
- Petitions Petitions · 8
- Petitions Petitions · 24
- Petitions Petitions · 3
- Petitions Petitions · 8
- Petitions Petitions · 7
- Petitions Petitions · 3
- Petitions Petitions · 8
- Petitions Petitions · 11
- Petitions Petitions · 1
- Budget Process Committee business · 12
- Work Programme Procedure · 85
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