Current Petitions

We have majored on PE1108 over the past year or so. It was lodged by Tina McGeever, on behalf of Mike Gray, and calls on the Parliament to urge the Government to consider the provision of more appropriate cancer treatment drugs and better accessibility to particular drugs on the national health service and to ensure equity of access across health board areas in that regard. Committee members have a copy of Tina McGeever's response to issues that have been raised since the publication of our report and the announcement of the position taken by the health department and the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing. How do members wish to take the petition forward, given its position as possibly the key petition that we addressed last year?

I talked to Tina McGeever, and she wished me to say to the committee that she really wanted to attend today but that work commitments precluded that. However, I think that the paper that she provided is very helpful indeed. I state for the record that I think that the Scottish Government has done a significant amount to progress the large number of issues that were raised in the original petition by Tina McGeever, on behalf of the now late Mike Gray.Although the issues have been addressed to an extent, I think that we need to go into more detail and ask more specific questions on, for instance, exceptional prescribing and local liaison officers in each health board. We have not really touched on those issues. Tina McGeever raises a number of other relevant issues in her paper. I ask members to consider inviting the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing, Nicola Sturgeon, to come before the committee so that we can explore all the issues in as much detail as possible. That would be one way in which to proceed.

Bill Butler has made a specific proposal. Are members comfortable with it? We will pull together all the questions to which we still want answers following our report. It is worth putting on record that we think that extremely constructive engagement on the petition has taken place with the relevant Scottish Government minister and with Scottish Government officials. We hope to continue that process. Inviting the minister and officials to appear before the committee might produce further benefits. Do members accept that recommendation?