Health and Sport Committee, 05 Mar 2008

Meeting date: Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Official Report 135KB pdf

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Petitions

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Methadone Prescriptions (PE789)

Under agenda item 2, we have two petitions to consider.

PE789, from Eric Brown, calls on the Scottish Parliament to take a view on the need for regulation to ensure that methadone prescriptions are taken by the patient while supervised by a suitably qualified medical practitioner. I am glad that Mr Brown is here to hear what we say about his petition.

I refer members to paper HS/S3/08/7/4 and, in particular, to the options in paragraph 21. I invite members to comment on this interesting petition.

I was impressed by the Public Petitions Committee's consideration of Mr Brown's petition. I sympathise with him, although I do not know whether the professionals around the table do.

Iain Gray makes a powerful point in his letter. He is really saying that every life is worth protecting and that if methadone is leaking on to our streets, we must ensure that there are ways of avoiding its diversion to protect children, given that some have been tragically affected by methadone.

Methadone is getting into our communities, and my favoured approach is for the committee to consider how we supervise its provision. The options that have been presented to us are particularly helpful, including option b), which suggests:

"close consideration of the petition on the grounds of the earlier work carried out by the PPC".

It is certainly appropriate that we closely consider the petition.

We should also write to the Scottish Government to ask for further information on the research into methadone that it has already commissioned. I know that the Government will publish a strategy later this year. There is a degree of urgency because, as I recall, Mr Brown's petition first came to the Parliament in 2004, and four years is a long time, during which children could have been put at risk. We have work to do on the petition.

Paragraph 13 refers to a Scottish Government news release dated 10 February 2008 and headed "Spending Watchdog to review drugs cash", which states that

"a new national drugs strategy will be published later this year."

Does that influence what we want to do? I concur with everything that Helen Eadie has said, but I would like to hear other members' views.

I understand where Helen Eadie is coming from, but she is asking us to choose options a) and b). I do not dissent on the need to make some progress—the petitioner is right—but option a) asks us to await the publication of that strategy. If we are dissatisfied with that, pursuing option b) remains open to us.

I think that option b) is being misread; I am probably guilty of that too. Option b) is to "close consideration" of the petition—to end our consideration of it—rather than to consider the petition closely. That does not mean that we cannot closely consider it as an alternative approach under option c).

I think that you are right.

It is not a problem—we all looked at it in that way.

I wish that things would move on, although we will get a strategy. The Government must be aware of all of the evidence that the Public Petitions Committee has put forward and of the very real concerns that exist over the way in which methadone is being dealt with, so it would be surprising if the strategy did not incorporate a response to those concerns. I am interested to see that response.

I agree, but we should still write to the Scottish Government prior to the publication of its strategy, to draw its attention to the petition.

That is option a).

I also want to ask the Government to examine the barriers to the supervised dispensing of methadone. Although I see no reason why the petitioner's request cannot be fulfilled, there are obviously reasons why people are allowed to take methadone away, and we need to consider the practical aspects. I suggest that we hold on to the petition until we see the strategy, because the committee will want to examine the strategy.

We will hold on to the petition. You are quite right. Many of us here represent rural areas, and we understand why close supervision is just not practical—for example, for someone who lives on a remote island.

That was really my point. I am sure that we all want to say how sorry we are that Mr Brown lost his son due to diverted use of methadone. It has taken tremendous courage for him to bring the petition this far. Like the convener and Rhoda Grant, I had not appreciated the number of methadone-related deaths involving unprescribed, illegal methadone until I read about the petition—I did not know that the situation was quite so bad. I understand that, as others have said, the forthcoming strategy will include options in addition to methadone, such as more options for rehabilitation, which Mr Brown is asking for.

As Iain Gray has pointed out, the main problem in methadone-related deaths is the use of unprescribed, illegal methadone, and no amount of GP supervision of methadone prescriptions will solve that. As a result, I am content to go with option a).

At least the methadone would not be available illegally and would be consumed in front of the GP.

We will follow our usual practice and circulate a draft letter to committee members. The committee's view is that we go with option a), which is to

"write to the Scottish Government … on how its commissioned research on methadone and the specific issue of supervised consumption will be incorporated into its new drugs strategy".

I think that that takes into account Rhoda Grant's point about supervision.

We will draft and circulate a letter and set a time limit for members' comments. If members are content, we will also send a copy to the Public Petitions Committee and to Mr Brown. Are members happy to take that course of action and to leave the petition open?

Members indicated agreement.

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Mental Health Services <br />(Deaf and Deaf-blind People) (PE808)

PE808, by Mrs Lilian Lawson, on behalf of the Scottish Council on Deafness, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Executive to develop and establish a specialist in-patient mental health unit for deaf and deaf-blind people and to provide resources such as training for mainstream psychiatric services in the community to make them more accessible to deaf and deaf-blind people in Scotland. The petitioner is in the public gallery this morning.

Do members have any comments on the briefing paper on the petition and on the options that are set out in paragraph 19 in particular? The issue is certainly relevant, given what we have discussed this morning.

I am in favour of option a), which is that we take the petition into account in our deliberations on the committee's proposed inquiry into the adequacy of Scotland's mental health strategy. After all, we have already heard this morning about the importance of this issue.

Given that we agreed at our away day to try, as far as possible, to absorb petitions into our work, I suggest that we leave the petition open and take it into account in our discussions on what we should cover in our proposed inquiry on mental health issues. Are members agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

That concludes our business in public.

Meeting continued in private until 12:33.