Current Petitions

Our next petition is PE1105, by Marjorie McCance on behalf of the St Margaret of Scotland Hospice, which calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Government to guarantee retention of continuing care provision for patients who require on-going complex medical and nursing care, such as is provided in the 30-bed unit at the hospice, and to investigate whether arrangements for funding palliative care provision at hospices in the context of Health Department letter HDL(2003)18 are fair and reasonable.For the benefit of members of the public, I will explain that there are two aspects to the petition that continue to be an issue. The first is specifically about resource allocation to a hospice in the west of Scotland. The second is a broader point about the distribution of money to hospices in general, and the share of their resources that they have to raise through private donations and charitable contributions. The petition has been considered by the committee on a number of occasions and has received fairly high-profile support from representatives of the archdiocese and elected members at local level. That is the background.

St Margaret's hospice is not in my constituency, but it is only a stone's throw away. It does a tremendous job, as I am sure we all acknowledge. I agree with Nanette Milne that we should await the Government's response to see what it contains. I accept that we cannot intervene in the case of a particular hospice, but we need to await the Government's response on funding. The people who have put so much into the campaign for St Margaret's and its funding would expect nothing less from us. We should not close the petition until we get the last word from the Government.

Is it in order for us to write to the cabinet secretary asking for a date for the proposed meeting with the Scottish hospices forum?

We have received a communication from one elected member—it is briefer than other contributions that some elected members make—

Name that member.

It would be unfair to do that.The member has identified a couple of areas where there is support across the main political parties to explore the issue. He asks us to continue the petition. My view is that it is sensible to continue the petition on the grounds that have been set out. Hopefully, that will enable us to get an immediate response from the minister and relevant health board on how they are tackling the broader issues that the petition raises. Is that agreed?