Item 2 is the consideration of petitions. Members will see that we have one new petition, PE609, which is highlighted in bold on the committee papers. The other petitions that we will consider today are on-going. We will go through them in the order in which they appear in annex A to the papers.
Epilepsy Service Provision (PE247)
Petition PE247 is from Epilepsy Action Scotland and it has been on-going for some time. We decided to take advice from Epilepsy Scotland about the progress that is being made, and it has submitted a letter to tell us its views on the work that the Executive has done so far on epilepsy. Do members have comments on the action that we could take on the petition and on how we should move forward?
I suggest that we write to the Executive and enclose a copy of the letter from Epilepsy Scotland. We should ask the Executive to comment on it.
Epilepsy Scotland acknowledges in its letter that progress has been made on the treatment of epilepsy. It indicates that it is pleased with some of the things that have been done. It would be useful to send its letter to the Executive and to seek further information.
I agree with that, but we should emphasise the role of epilepsy nurses and the fact that they are not very well spread out across Scotland.
Is it agreed that we should ask for the Executive's comments on that?
I add that it is urgent to make an early diagnosis of epilepsy.
Organ Retention (PE370)
We move on to petition 370 from Lydia Reid, on behalf of the Guardian Angels, on organ retention following post-mortem examinations. The work that has been done on the petition involved writing to the Executive and we have its response. Members are invited to consider how we should move forward. The Executive response detailed several developments in organ retention following post-mortem examinations and the current Executive consultation on the new proposals. Does the committee want to take the petition further or is it happy with the Executive's work on the issue?
No one wants to be the big bad wolf. There is always a silence around the table when we reach the conclusion that we do not want to take any further action on a petition, so I will say it. The petition has been moved on and it has been going for some time.
Duncan McNeil is being brave and I will join him in that. We must take a decision—we keep getting all these petitions in, but we are duty-bound to recognise when a petition has pushed the Executive to take action in a certain direction and action is being achieved. If we keep the petition open, we will raise hopes that we will return to it. Duncan McNeil is right; we should note the petition and close it.
I agree. It seems that the Executive has made progress on trying to get things right. It may be that we need to be sure that it has done so. Perhaps we should get some feedback on that at a later date. We should write to the petitioner to say that we note the progress that has been made and hope that it continues.
If we decide today to end the petition, we will write to the petitioner. If you wish, we could ask the Executive to keep us updated on the work that it is doing.
That would be good, because we want to be sure that the good ideas that the Executive is suggesting are put into practice.
I support other members' views on that. It is important to put on record and say to the petitioners that the Scottish Executive has published a consultation paper. The proposals in that paper are encouraging, because the Executive talks about
We must be clear that the petition calls for a public inquiry but that the position that we are taking is that we will tell the petitioners about proposed legislation and work that the Executive is doing. I ask members to bear that in mind when the committee makes its final decision.
I was going to add that point. It is not within our power to call a public inquiry, but we could call on the Scottish Executive to initiate one. I am satisfied with the Executive's response on the issue, and I think that it would be appropriate to close consideration of the petition. When the Executive publishes its draft legislation, the petitioners can influence it during its passage through the Parliament.
It would be courteous to let the petitioners know the legislative timetable once it is announced and to remind them that they can submit evidence as part of the Parliament's consideration of the bill on the matter.
Yes. We could cover that by asking the Executive to keep us informed of the timetable, and the clerks could forward that information to the petitioners.
We should put an assurance that we will do that in the letter to the petitioners.
Is it agreed that we take no further action on the petition, write to the petitioners telling them that and write to the Executive asking it to keep us updated on progress on the issue?
Chronic Pain Management (PE374)
Petition PE374, by Dr Steve Gilbert, calls on the Scottish Parliament to act urgently to redress the underfunding of chronic pain management services. The petition has been with the committee since the previous parliamentary session. The Executive response tells us that a report of Professor James McEwen's review of chronic pain services will be published. One option that we have is to await the publication of that report before deciding how to proceed further.
That is exactly what we should do. We should wait to see what the report has to say.
I support that.
Are we agreed to await the report's publication and reconsider the petition at a later date?
Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (PE398)
Petition PE398, from Helen McDade and others, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Executive to carry out a strategic needs review assessment on ME. We have discussed the petition many times before, and we have with us Alex Fergusson from the cross-party group in the Scottish Parliament on ME.
Thank you, convener.
We have gathered a lot of information on the petition over the course of time. One action that came out of our work on the petition and the work of the cross-party group on ME was the Executive's commissioning of a short-life working group to consider how ME is treated in Scotland. The issue that we must discuss today relates to the Executive's point that it does not directly provide facilities for the management of chronic illness in communities and that that is up to the health boards. The health boards have been asked to report to the Scottish Executive on the facilities that they have put in place and those reports are expected at the beginning of this year. One option for us is to await the further information from the health boards on what they have put in place as a result of the findings of the short-life working group.
I have great sympathy with the idea of carrying out an inquiry on the issue in time, but we cannot move to that stage until we get a progress report from the health boards. Perhaps the committee could write to each health board to ask for direct submissions on their plans and how far they have got with delivery against a published time scale. We should also ask whether they have any comments about the support that they expect to receive from the Scottish Executive.
Before I say anything, perhaps I should declare what I hope are reasonably well-known interests: I convene the cross-party group in the Scottish Parliament on ME and I have a child who is affected by the disease.
I restrict my comments simply to stating my strong support for Alex Fergusson's request.
Sorry, I failed to welcome Robin Harper MSP, who has again come along to support the petition.
Given that we are already in 2004, perhaps we should write to the Executive to remind it of the commitment that it made and to ask whether the reports will be received in a few days or a couple of weeks. We could contact boards directly, but it would be useful to have a starting point from which to do so. If we are to receive the reports in a couple of weeks, it may be worth holding off to allow us to consider the information. That would give us something to go on and would allow us to write to the boards with an informed request for more information. However, we will not be able to decide until we know when we will get the reports. If there is to be a delay in receiving that information, we should write directly to the health boards.
Would it be normal to write directly to health boards rather than seek information from the Executive?
It is open to us to write directly to health boards if we wish to do so. There is merit in Shona Robison's proposal that we write to the Executive to seek confirmation of when it expects to receive the responses. On receipt of an answer from the Executive, we can reconsider the issue and decide what to do. If there is a long time lapse, perhaps we should consider further what to do. However, I favour Shona Robison's proposal, which is that we write to the Executive to ask when it expects to receive the health boards' responses.
I agree with that proposal. I declare an interest because I, too, am a member of the cross-party group on ME. I know how hard Alex Fergusson and other colleagues in the group have worked on the issue, which is to their credit. I declare another, personal, interest because my father-in-law suffers from ME.
We can request a copy of that strategy paper when we write to the Executive.
I agree with everything that has been said, but I want us to keep it in mind that ME is a difficult condition to diagnose. However, early diagnosis would not only ensure that the best treatment was provided but probably be more cost-effective. A heap of research is needed to find out what is going on in ME. If there were another condition that affected as many people as ME does, we would be trying to find out the cause.
I agree strongly with what Jean Turner has just said. I want to put on the record that a well-received report last year estimated that there are 20,000 ME sufferers in Scotland, which costs the country £300 million a year in lost productivity. That is a substantial amount of money, which could be saved. Jean Turner is right about the research. I disagree with her in only one way. Since the report of the chief medical officer in England was published last year, ME is no longer defined as a condition. ME is now a recognised disease, but it suffers from an enormous lack of research funding. That is one of the matters to which I hope the Health Committee will return once the health boards have reported.
I accept what Shona Robison said about trying to get what we can from the Executive. However, I am in only partial agreement with her as I think that to save time we could also ask health boards to copy us in when they write to the Executive. The letter dated 17 December that Trevor Lodge sent to the committee says:
The Executive might already have sought the progress reports. We can write to it and ask for copies of the responses that it gets from health boards as soon as they arrive, rather than ask health boards to send copies to us, because they might already have started sending their responses to the Executive.
Do you have faith in the postal system?
I am just trying to cover all bases.
Members have spoken warmly about the petition and there is obvious support for it around the table. However, we must be careful when we consider one condition or disease in isolation from everything else in the health service. I would not like us to be misleading or to give false expectations to the petitioners on the condition/disease of ME—I would not like that to be done in my name, anyway. When we examine issues in isolation, we tend to do that. There are many people with conditions and diseases who will petition us for special treatment. We should always try to keep matters in perspective. I am again pouring cold water on the petition.
I will take advantage of the presence of the convener of the cross-party group to ask him to comment on the estimate in the letter from Trevor Lodge of the Scottish Executive that
May I respond to that question, convener?
Yes.
Because I was once a convener, I cannot stand people speaking without permission. Mike Rumbles was always one of the best of them.
Your point is understandable. You have now seen the letter, which I am sure the cross-party group will discuss.
I want to make a point about the papers, which Alex Fergusson has told us he has not seen. The responses from the petitioner and the Executive are attached. No written response has been received from the cross-party group on ME. For the sake of the group's integrity, can you indicate whether it was asked about this issue and whether it has received the papers and correspondence that we have received? If not, it should receive them in the future, so that it is not placed in the situation of not having a paper that arrives in front of us. It has been suggested that there are other petitions to which the relevant cross-party group has not responded. I am not apportioning blame, but we need to clear up the matter.
The intention is that when we seek further information about an on-going petition from a cross-party group we should let it see the correspondence that we have received. We may have received this letter after we asked the cross-party group to give evidence to us. I notice that the letter is dated 17 December. Our decision to continue the petition was made prior to that. That probably explains what has happened. However, I am sure that the cross-party group will welcome the opportunity to discuss the correspondence.
Absolutely. I hope that the committee will accept the submission from Helen McDade, who is no longer the secretary to the cross-party group and who has made her submission as an individual. On behalf of the cross-party group, I support the submission 100 per cent.
Duncan McNeil is right to say that the Health Committee faces a number of difficult decisions because of the very large number of petitions that it receives, perhaps unlike other committees of the Parliament. From the discussion around the table, you have heard that there is support for the petition and we will continue to discuss this issue. However, we must bear it in mind that we have difficult decisions to make.
I want to respond to the point that Duncan McNeil has made. It is true that at times we are bombarded and snowed under, but if thousands of people suffer from this and other conditions, we cannot cherry pick. If conditions exist in Scotland, we must carry out research into them and apply science and research to find out what causes them and how we should treat them. Conditions such as ME/chronic fatigue syndrome, multiple sclerosis and autism exist in our society and we cannot ignore them. If they are on the increase and insufficient research is being carried out into them, it is up to the Health Committee to support the groups affected.
The benefit of the establishment of the Scottish Parliament is demonstrated by the fact that we are having this discussion today. We have influenced and challenged the Executive's position on this matter. We should put the matter in perspective. If we were sitting here today deciding whether £8 million should go into cancer services in the west of Scotland or into a research project on the condition, it would be a completely different debate. My point is that we are dealing with the petitions in isolation. Of course we have sympathy with petitioners, and we do not dismiss them lightly, but to suggest that we have solutions and that we can call for money to deal with these petitions would be wrong, and our credibility would suffer as a result.
We are moving on to a more general discussion now. It is a tribute to the work of the cross-party group and the previous committee that we had the short-life action group, and that we and the Executive did a lot of work on the subject. I assume that there is no dissent, and that we agree to continue with the petition in the meantime, and take the action that we previously agreed.
Thank you for your indulgence, convener. I point out that it may be a single petition, but it is on behalf of somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 people.
I thank you and Robin Harper for your attendance.
Deceased Persons <br />(Law and Code of Practice) (PE406)
Petition PE406, from Margaret Doig, calls on the Scottish Parliament to redress the omissions concerning the current law and code of practice that govern post-mortem examination of bodies where the deceased has no surviving relatives.
Should we not send along the petition as part of the Executive's consultation on post-mortem examination, and await the results of that consultation? We should take the middle two actions of the four that are proposed in the clerks' paper.
I acknowledge that there was uniformity in the responses that the committee received, but that does not necessarily mean that there has been uniformity in practice. That is why Margaret Doig's concerns have arisen, and I commend her on the power of work that she has done on the issue.
I support what Shona Robison said. We cannot drop the first recommendation that there should be a standardised system. I hope that that will come out of any new legislation. Should we write to one or other of the justice committees, if not both of them, to find out whether they have taken a view? They will have to deal with a good chunk of that legislation and it would be good to establish relationships with those committees, so that we could shadow each other's work. The justice committees will come at the issue from a slightly different point of view; I am not saying that they are not the sensitive, caring creatures that we are, but there will be different responsibilities within the parliamentary process. We should ensure that the papers go to those committees, to be considered as part of their deliberations.
The important thing is that the petitioner wanted people without relatives to make decisions about post-mortems well before, for example, the kind of deathbed decision that might be made by relatives of other people. She wanted to make it clear that, if a person with no relatives puts the decision in writing in their will, that decision should be adhered to and no one should be able to countermand it. After reading through all the papers, I think that there is a slight possibility that a medical officer or consultant in charge could decide that, if the patient had no real relatives and if they could not get in touch with the patient's executor, they could go ahead with the post-mortem. I have read this lady's very well-researched information carefully and I believe that that is what she wants to make clear.
That is exactly why I said that we should take the matter to the Parliament's justice committees rather than simply reach a conclusion ourselves. Even though we might have sympathy with the view that is expressed in the petition, this sort of request would very much be an issue for the justice committees if it meant a change in the way that wills are processed.
That is a good point.
Members seem to be suggesting that we await publication of the outcome of the consultation before we consider whether to progress the first suggested action in the paper, which is to recommend to the Executive that there should be a standardised system for expressing wishes for the treatment of the body after death. I know from Ms Doig's correspondence that she has written directly to the minister on this matter, so I assume that the Executive has a deal of these papers. That said, it would not do any harm to send all the correspondence to the Executive and, at the same time, to ask it about the timetable for the consultation. We should also send the correspondence to the justice committees with a view to discussing with them how we might move forward on this issue. Are members agreed?
Autistic Spectrum Disorder (PE452)<br />Psychiatric Services (PE538)
Autism (Treatment) (PE577)
Petition PE452, in the name of James Mackie, is grouped with PE538, also in the name of James Mackie, and PE577, in the name of Steve Law. All the petitions call on the Scottish Parliament to investigate a range of issues relating to the methods of diagnosis and treatment of adults with autistic spectrum disorder in psychiatric hospitals in Scotland.
Although the petitions have been grouped together, they are all slightly different. For example, PE577, in the name of Steve Law, is not about mental health services but about trying to get autism recognised as a medical condition. As far as developing those services is concerned, I return to a point that Dr Turner made about the need for research. It appears that genetic inheritance has formed the basis of some of the research when, in fact, much of this matter comes down to immunology and the body's systems. As there are variations across the petitions, I do not want us simply to say yes or no to all three at the same time. We need to consider each of them separately.
I support David Davidson's comments. I wonder whether we could probe with the Executive one of the issues about research that it raises in its response. For example, the Executive says that
It is good to see how seriously the Scottish Executive is taking this matter in spending £250,000 on the research and in planning to take a series of actions—such as the national diagnosis study day in March—along with the actions of the social services departments and the health boards. A number of actions are suggested in the minister's letter, and that is a positive response. I have no objection to what has been suggested by David Davidson and Shona Robison, but it would be helpful for us to see the final report of the consultation that is mentioned in the Executive's response. We should continue to ask probing questions on the issues.
It is very costly to look after an autistic child. It is costly to the health service, in specialised treatments, and it is costly to the family. It is, therefore, a huge cost to the country to have people suffering from such conditions. Autism could be linked to other conditions; we do not know enough about it, but it definitely exists and its incidence is increasing tremendously. What Shona Robison said about the research is important.
In relation to PE577, many of us have had meetings with Action Against Autism, and have spoken with the charity about some of the scientific support that it has received. I wonder whether we could write to Action Against Autism, asking for information about the cost of autism to the nation—as Jean Turner put it—and, specifically, about what it means by an "autism specific medical facility". I got the impression that it was talking about a joint centre that would not only deal with diagnosis, but do a lot of research. I do not think that that is how it appears in our briefing paper, but I think that that is what was intended. We might write to the charity, asking for clarification and expansion on that point, and defer consideration of the petition until we next deal with petitions.
On the point about medical research into autism, I wonder whether the convener would write to the Medical Research Council. I would like to know in a bit more detail what the £2.75 million is being spent on. Where are the awards going? What research is being done? Perhaps we can get that information from the Medical Research Council.
In relation to PE474, I meant to say earlier that I seem to remember that the fairly open response to Sarah Boyack's question about research into toxin levels at last week's question time was that the issue might be considered. The petitioners seem to be asking something similar. If the Executive is considering supporting research into toxin levels more generally, perhaps work could be done specifically on autism. We could ask the Executive about that.
Petition PE474 is being considered on its own, because it is not related specifically to autism in that respect.
My apologies.
That is okay. We will come to it next.
I have no problem with our writing to the Medical Research Council, but it would be helpful to ask for comparators around what is spent on autism and what other research is going on. This comes back to the point that Duncan McNeil made: it is all very well to either lament or applaud the amount of money that is being spent on research, but it is easier to do so if we know what is being spent on cancer, heart disease and so on, as that allows us to make a judgment. In Cowdenbeath in my constituency, we have an autism centre, of which members might be aware, which serves a wider area than just my constituency.
Helen Eadie makes a useful point. I am interested not so much in the amount of money that is being spent, but in the research that is being done.
It has been suggested that we write to the Executive asking for more information about the money that is being spent on research. It has also been suggested that we write to the MRC about research. Do we want to do both?
Yes.
We will write to the Executive seeking further information about the bids that it has received for research, which is the point that it was asked to answer. We will also write to the MRC to ask specifically about research into autism.
That all arises out of correspondence from the Executive; it does not relate to the petition.
It does not relate specifically to the petition.
We have meandered away from the petition.
The point about research is covered; it relates to some of the petitions, but not to all of them.
In relation to PE577, I asked whether we could write to Action Against Autism to seek clarification of what it thought the centre would do and whether it would be a research or diagnostic centre. I also asked whether we could get information, which might have been collected by now, on the cost of autism to the nation, which relates to the point that Jean Turner made.
The note from the clerk says that PE577 is calling for the establishment of an "autism specific medical treatment facility". It does not say anything about research.
The note says that PE452 calls
We will cover that by writing to the Executive and the MRC. Do we agree to proceed in that way?
Heavy Metal Poisoning (PE474)
Petition PE474, which is from James Mackie, concerns heavy metal poisoning. Shona Robison has made comments on the petition. Do members have any other comments to add? Following our most recent correspondence, we have received a response from the Executive, which makes it clear that the Executive has done some work, but that there are no plans to act on the issues that arose specifically from the petition.
Forgive me, but I am looking at the Official Report of our meeting on 7 October and I know that we did not get an answer to one of the points that had been raised. I have found the reference. When we last discussed the petition, we said that the Executive had not come back with enough information on cadmium and the other substances that cause certain types of dysfunction. I am thinking about issues around tin and antimony. It would be helpful if the Executive, through its science arm, could let us know what further information it holds on that area.
Okay. We will write to the Executive to seek more detailed information on the issue. Is that agreed?
Aphasia (PE475)
Petition PE475 was submitted by Mrs Cecilia Yardley on behalf of Speakability. The petitioner calls on the Scottish Parliament to take the necessary steps to recognise aphasia as a life-disabling condition; to develop and produce accurate measures to recognise, treat and support aphasic people; to improve the quality of service that is available to aphasia sufferers; and to support service development that is based on accurate measures of need and performance.
The letter from Malcolm Chisholm refers to
We have the opportunity to ask the petitioner to comment on the Executive's response. Would that be a sensible way to go forward?
The Executive suggests that this service should be a multidisciplinary treatment. That is good, but, given the shortage of all the various therapists, it might be difficult for such a service to be provided. It is not possible to cart people from 20 or 50 miles away and bring them into centres. Provision has to be made for people to access the services, possibly even in their own homes. There is a hidden cost to providing the services, because people are taken to centres in taxis and ambulances. It would be more cost-effective for there to be more specialist therapists. The country's NHS costs would be cut if people were made more independent. I make a plea for that to happen. It is difficult to envisage the multidisciplinary approach when the therapists are not in place.
Do we have information about the availability of speech and language therapists?
No, but I was about to say—
I think that there was a recent members' business debate on the subject. I suspect that the Executive will have that information to hand.
I was going to propose that, in our letter to the Executive, we ask it to respond to what it said about the multidisciplinary approach in the context of the number of therapists who are available. We will ask the Executive to give us an idea of the numbers. We will also ask the petitioner to comment on the Executive's response. Is that agreed?
Digital Hearing Aids (PE502)
Petition PE502 was submitted by Fiona Stewart on behalf of the Royal National Institute for Deaf People Scotland. The petitioner calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Executive to show firm commitment to the provision of digital hearing aids and to modernise audiology services in Scotland.
The other thing that we should be aware of when we write to the Executive—and I would support our doing that—is that, in many parts of Scotland, waiting times for accessing the service make matters quite difficult. The letters that I have received from the Executive indicate that that is the responsibility of health boards. I wonder whether the minister might manage to provide us with some information on what improvements are being made across the country, rather than send a standard letter that says, "This information is not held centrally." The issue is vital.
I tend to support the first option in our paper:
I support what Kate Maclean is saying. I am looking at the letter from RNID Scotland, which states:
I raised the issue in a members' business debate in the second year of the Parliament. It is an extremely important issue, on which I have worked closely with RNID Scotland. What the Executive has done is to be applauded; an injection of £20 million over the next few years is a real boost to the service. It is only right and proper that RNID Scotland wants to ensure that the Health Committee keeps a watching brief on the Executive's programme; that is also to be applauded. The fact that the Scottish Executive has committed to that programme is great news, but parliamentarians must ensure that it delivers what we expect it to deliver.
I go along with the first recommendation. It is important to be sure that young children have good hearing, otherwise their speech may be impaired. If children do not hear properly, they do not speak properly and if that problem is missed until they get to school, they do not learn properly.
Are we agreed, then, that we should send the response that we have received from RNID Scotland to the Executive and that we should ask the Executive to comment on the early-years support programme and on the roll-out of digital hearing aids across Scotland?
Mental Welfare (Complaints Procedure) (PE537)
Petition PE537, which is from Alexander Mitchell, calls on the Scottish Parliament to investigate the performance of the Mental Welfare Commission and the health ombudsman in handling complaints and to make recommendations for improvements to ensure that complaints are dealt with thoroughly, openly and fairly.
I would go with bullet point 1 in the clerk's paper, which suggests that we await the views of the petitioner on the response that we have received.
I am advised that that is probably due to timing. As we did not receive the response from the ombudsman until 22 December, the cross-party group on mental health would not have received it until the beginning of the year. I suspect that the lack of response is not an oversight but has arisen because the group has not yet been able to consider the response.
Multiple Sclerosis (Respite Homes) (PE572)
Petition PE572, which is from Patrick and Jennifer Woods, calls on the Scottish Parliament to investigate whether there is within Scotland adequate provision of homes that have no upper age limit and which provide respite care for sufferers of multiple sclerosis and other disabling conditions.
The list of local authorities is not comprehensive and seems to contain only those from which COSLA managed to get information. We do not yet have the full picture on the Scotland-wide situation on respite care for people with MS, so perhaps we need to consider other ways of doing that.
I do not disagree with that but, as Kate Maclean said when we discussed the petition previously, our difficulty is that local authorities are not the only providers of such care. If we cannot get the information from the care commission because it is not far enough advanced as an organisation to have established its data collection, we will still not get the full picture even if we seek information from every local authority. I am not sure how we should deal with that.
Even if the care commission does not have the information, would not each local authority's social work department be likely to have information on providers that they use within their areas?
We might have to make it clear to local authorities that we also want to know about the facilities that they use rather than just those that they run.
I think that we could certainly get more information than we have at the moment. Social work departments would be able to get details about places to which they make referrals. However, because there is such a lack of facilities, local authorities often make referrals outwith their own areas. I do not know who would collate all that information. It might be quite complicated.
Is it agreed that we contact local authorities again to ask them for more detailed information, and that we also seek information from the care commission? The commission states that it hopes
That is the end of the on-going petitions.
Eating Disorders (Treatment) (PE609)
We have one new petition to consider, which is PE609, from Mrs Gráinne Smith, on behalf of North East Eating Disorders Support (Scotland) and the Scottish Eating Disorder Interest Group. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to ask the Scottish Executive to address, develop and fund specialised treatment of eating disorders.
First, I declare an interest as the father of a sufferer of an eating disorder. I know Gráinne Smith very well. I have attended some of her support group's meetings in different parts of the north-east and I assure members that all that she says about her experience is absolutely genuine and valid. She is highly respected.
The Executive's letter makes it clear that we would be pushing at an open door because the Executive is willing to explore ways of examining best practice in other European countries. That prompts me to suggest that we have two possible options. Bearing in mind our work programme, which we will consider later, we can either conduct our own inquiry with a reporter, or we can refer the petition back to the Public Petitions Committee for further consideration. I favour the latter option because I am a member of the Public Petitions Committee and I know that it is keen to undertake such work.
I intended to seek your advice on the petition because you are, as you said, a member of the Public Petitions Committee. When the Public Petitions Committee first discussed the petition it agreed to write to the Royal College of Psychiatrists, but that body does not seem to have responded. I believe that the Public Petitions Committee discussed the petition again in December, when it agreed to pass it to the Health Committee. Our work programme means that we can consider a limited number of new inquiries. Would the Public Petitions Committee be able to take the petition further?
We would need to ask that committee. I know that the previous Public Petitions Committee wanted to undertake more detailed work on some petitions. The Conveners Group likes committees to follow protocol, which means that the Health Committee must ensure that the Public Petitions Committee would be happy to take the petition further. It is a question of following agreed procedures and checking that the Public Petitions Committee wants to do that.
A paragraph in Trevor Lodge's letter states:
The current figure for sufferers from eating disorders is similar to the figure for ME sufferers that Alex Fergusson gave. However, those are only the diagnosed cases; many sufferers are not diagnosed until another illness happens to them. Death often results from such illnesses and the cause of death is recorded as something other than an eating disorder.
The recorded number of eating disorder sufferers is only the tip of the iceberg. In fact, an awful lot more people out there need treatment. The same situation exists with other illnesses that we discuss on the Health Committee. The sad thing about young sufferers from eating disorders is that when they have to go into hospital they are often pushed into wards that are inappropriate for their condition and which might have inadequate supervision because of a lack of staff. That makes the situation worse. As I said, we should ask the Royal College of Psychiatrists for information.
I tend to agree with Helen Eadie that the petition would lend itself well to being dealt with by the Public Petitions Committee. We are discussing the health aspect of the petition, but discussion of it should also cover education. Much could be done in the education sphere in terms of early diagnosis and support. It would be good if the Public Petitions Committee were happy to take the petition on board. Perhaps a member of the Health Committee who was particularly interested in the issue could work with the Public Petitions Committee on the petition and report back to us.
Do we agree to write to the Public Petitions Committee to ask whether it is willing to conduct an initial inquiry into the issues that the petition raises? If the Public Petitions Committee agrees to do that, we can consider whether we want to appoint someone to be, technically, our reporter on the Public Petitions Committee. We can ask for volunteers at that time. Is that agreed?
That concludes our consideration of petitions. [Interruption.]
Asthma Treatment (Prescription Charges) (PE623)
Sorry, we have one more petition which is for information only. Petition PE623, in the name of Vicki Ferguson, calls on the Scottish Parliament to take the necessary steps to amend existing legislation in order to abolish prescription charges for all medication prescribed for the treatment of asthma. The Public Petitions Committee considered the petition in June and again on 12 November and has copied us into the Executive's correspondence for our information. We need take no action on the petition at this time. Basically, the Public Petitions Committee is keeping us informed about a health-related petition that it is dealing with.
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