Petition
Speech and Language Therapy (PE1384)
We now move to agenda item 4, which is consideration of our approach to petition 1384 by Kim Hartley, which has been referred to the committee. Committee members have had papers on the matter. Do any members wish to speak to those papers or to suggest a way forward for the committee?
Having been a member of the Public Petitions Committee, I am familiar with the petition. I note the clerk’s paper and the recommendation contained within it. I suggest that, rather than close the petition, we write to the Scottish Government to seek clarification on where the Government feels that the petitioner’s aims have been addressed in current Government policies and strategies. Once we receive that response, we should then give consideration to how we want to approach the issue that the petitioner raises. We might want to consider the issue more generally or do something more targeted.
Although the petitioner is pleased with the Government’s proposed delivery plan, I note that she still has concerns, particularly about the waiting time, which for children is
“up to 27 weeks with a maximum of 81 weeks”
and is also substantial for adults. Budget reductions have had a noticeable effect on the provision of speech and language therapy and there is a concern about projected staff changes. Those are issues that we should perhaps pursue with the Government. Therefore, like Mark McDonald, I suggest that we keep the petition open, in particular to pursue with the Government how it is providing quality speech and language therapy services.
I agree with both Mark and Nanette—I think we are still in private. Are we in public session now?
I am afraid so.
In that case, I will be a bit more formal and say that I agree with my colleagues.
It interests me that speech and language therapy is funded by not just the health service, but the local authorities, which are subject to very substantial squeezes that I think are being passed on. With Scottish National Party colleagues, I recently visited Glasgow’s speech and language therapy services, which have been completely redesigned and reorganised and have managed to get both waiting times and costs down. The local professionals seemed to regard that as appropriate, so there is a model out there that is working effectively.
I suggest that we also ask for evidence from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, which, as far as I know, did not give evidence—if it did, perhaps we could look at that—to the Public Petitions Committee. Perhaps we could also get a fuller summary of the evidence that has been given to that committee, so that we could take a look at that.
I entirely agree with Mark McDonald that at this point we should write to the Government to ask where speech and language therapy fits into the new targets for the allied health professionals.
An 18-week waiting time might be appropriate for an adult, but I suspect that it probably is not. If you have had a stroke, you are already into a treatment process and you should not have to wait a further 18 weeks to get into rehabilitation. The Stroke Association has been very concerned about the fact that, although the immediate rehabilitation systems are now good and the Government has done well in moving forward on the rapid admission of people with stroke to the appropriate specialist stroke unit, we are still failing substantially on the post-immediate rehabilitation phase, which often involves speech and language issues. In particular, swallowing difficulties can be a major concern.
Finally, it is really not appropriate to have even an 18-week waiting time for children. In the previous session, this committee heard from a Queen Margaret University professor who told us how delays to health visitor referrals have increased the average age of referral from just under three to over four, which leads to a really serious problem in the pre-school phase. The letter from Kim Hartley mentions
“median waits for Children up to 27 weeks with a maximum of 81 weeks”.
If there is a waiting time of 27 to 81 weeks in a pre-school situation, that means that those children will enter school facing very serious drawbacks.
We need to have a thorough look at the matter and go into those issues in a great deal more detail. Initially, however, we should try to get a response from the Government to some of the issues that have been raised.
I think that we have consensus on the suggestion that we keep open the petition and seek further information. Although, unfortunately, the clerks did not receive the email that members received yesterday, I wonder whether we should also take some of that into account. We should not prejudge anything at this stage; instead, we should give the Government an opportunity to consider the position and respond and then we will consider what action, if any, to take.
I also note that Richard Simpson made a number of good suggestions about writing to COSLA.
I know that we can click through the links to access information on the petition, but I wonder whether it would be helpful to include hard copies of the evidence that the Public Petitions Committee received in the next mailing to members.
Would that be helpful?
Members indicated agreement.
Do we agree to proceed on the basis as summarised?
Members indicated agreement.
As we now move to agenda item 5, which we previously agreed to take in private, I close the public part of the meeting.
10:06
Meeting continued in private until 10:35.