New Petitions

I will address the petitions separately and I thank the convener for moving them up the agenda.Belhaven hospital in East Lothian provides another example of the fact that care provision for the elderly is under threat in Scotland. I remember campaigning with Phil Gallie for the Carrick Street halls, which represented a lost battle in Ayr for the elderly. We have a crisis in the care of the elderly.Belhaven hospital is a local hospital just outside Dunbar. It has three wards—two geriatric and one for respite—one of which is under threat. A huge campaign has been undertaken by the local community council, the Belhaven hospital league of friends and the entire local community.The reason for closing the respite ward is underuse of the facility. It is said that the hospital is 40 per cent underused. That is extraordinary when we know the difficulties in providing respite throughout the Lothians, where 500-odd patients are bedblocking. No consideration has been given to the fact that some Edinburgh patients could be put in Belhaven hospital—transport from Edinburgh to Dunbar is not difficult. Instead, the threat of closure has been made.When the committee considers the matter and sees how it interlocks with PE599, I hope that it will take the view that the Executive must deal with the crisis in care of the elderly in the community, whether in a local hospital or a nursing home. Extraordinarily, a hospital ward has been threatened with closure. Petition PE599 deals with a nursing home that is threatened with closure. There will be no place for elderly people to go in East Lothian. I ask the committee to consider the petitions against the background of all the continuing care that is required for the elderly.The committee might consider writing to Lothian Primary Care NHS Trust. The committee now has a copy of a letter of 24 January from the trust—that letter represents the most up-to-date position, to the best of my knowledge. I refer members to the third paragraph of the letter, which says:"I am now able to report to you that we are currently engaged in the process of applying to the Care Commission for formal registration of Ward One as a nursing home. This will enable us to provide care home facilities for those patients who are currently subject to delayed discharge in acute hospital beds in East Lothian and Edinburgh. Whilst it will take … three months for our application to be processed, we have nevertheless decided to reopen Ward One as of Monday, 27th January … and run it on the basis of a nursing home from this date."That is the most recent information to hand—the committee might want to find out more—but it describes the position for only three months, after which everything will be precarious and elderly people will be in a vulnerable position.Petition PE599 is on Cockenzie House nursing home. I am sure that the committee will wish to commend the petitioners on the thorough manner in which they have presented the petition. I will refer to some of the accompanying letters, because we are talking about individual people—the 53 residents. They are real people with real pasts, real presents and real futures, but they are being treated like bits of furniture in a fight about funding that should not have happened.East Lothian Council pays itself £449 per week per resident for a residential nursing home and pays the private sector £388 per week per resident per nursing home. People here do not need to be told that nursing homes require more intensive staffing and a higher professional level of nursing than do residential nursing homes, yet a funding gap of almost £70 per week per resident exists between what the local authority pays itself and what it pays a private nursing home. Why? It is cheaper to run a residential home. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation says that £465 is the proper figure that should be paid per week per resident per nursing home, but on offer to the private care sector is £406. That is where the problem lies, not only in Cockenzie, but throughout Scotland. The irony is that, if Cockenzie House closes and those 53 lovely people must be put in hospital beds, that will cost the state about £800 per week per resident. Even in hard economic terms, let alone humanitarian terms, the calculation is ridiculous.In July 2002, Jack McConnell said:"For most of us, our parents worked all their lives to give us a decent standard of living and a decent home and I think we've … got a duty as they go into their old age to look after them too … Being in care is a traumatic time for the whole family and I want to make sure that we make that as easy as possible".Those are fine words, but they are not followed up by fine actions. For the reasons that I have given and because of the costings that I described, the situation is impossible. The battle is not about being for the private sector or the public sector. That does not matter. What matters is elderly people who require to be looked after in their homes.I will briefly quote one or two letters. Someone who has a family member in Cockenzie House writes:"This is a desperate cry for help for someone to tell us what is going to happen to my 90 yr. old father + other residents of Cockenzie House … They are not pieces of furniture that can be moved or disposed of to rectify your problem of ‘bed blocking'."I apologise to other people who have sent personal letters, because I cannot take up the committee's time by going through them all, but they are extraordinary because they remind us that people are involved. Another letter says:"When my father died in January 2001 it was with the assurance and confidence that his wife, my mother's, remaining years would be secure in Cockenzie House, an environment close to loved ones and friends in the community where she was born and brought up."The letter continues:"The electorate put unquestioned faith and store that our elected representatives in Parliament that the interests of our senior citizens are being taken care of. This is now sorely and severely being questioned."There are many such letters telling stories of people who are back in their local community. I have here a letter from an upset and worried daughter who says that her mother"was cared for at home by my sister for 8 years until it became too much and affected my sister's health. After a lot of upset and fighting with Social Services, we eventually got her into this nursing home, which she now calls her home."Another letter reads:"My mother has lived all her days in Cockenzie and Port Seton, attending Cockenzie School and Preston Lodge."The letter tells of her life, the man she married and her community. It continues:"When it was decided through assessment, that my mother would have to go into care, we visited many Nursing Homes in East Lothian and, without any hesitation, came to the decision that Cockenzie was most suitable."The trauma that people go through when they put their elderly parents into nursing homes is bad enough without penny pinching by the Administration making them wonder whether their parents are secure in a place in which they are happy, loved and cared for. I am sorry that I have taken up your time, convener, but I am extremely angry that people have had to stand outside this building in the cold and damp and have had to campaign and sign petitions about something that the Parliament should be ashamed of.

I have here a news release from the Church of Scotland—I think that a bit of spin has been put on what it has to say. The director of social work for the Church of Scotland said:"While we believe that the cost of residential care is significantly greater than £346 a week, we have reluctantly agreed to accept this baseline figure from the Scottish Executive and CoSLA.As this figure doesn't meet the true cost of care, we hope to keep discussions open with funders as we further demonstrate our commitment to the provision of the highest quality of service to older people in our communities."In other words, the Church of Scotland has accepted the figure on much the same basis that Mary Scanlon has highlighted and is funding provision through other sources.

I whole-heartedly endorse the suggestion that, in view of the recent announcement, we raise the issue of funding with the Scottish Executive. As I understand it, the issues that the committee has raised with the Executive on the previous petitions have centred more on the adequacy—or shortfall—and effectiveness of provision. However, from what we have heard today, funding is the crux of the matter and it is important that the Executive gives us an indication of whether it is prepared to revisit the issue.