Item 3 is consideration of petitions. At our meeting on 23 November the committee agreed to await further material to inform its consideration of four petitions. The material is now available for three of the petitions, which we will consider today. That consideration is outwith our standard eight-week cycle, but we want to make progress before our workload increases with the anticipated introduction of the Executive's health bill.
Chronic Pain Management (PE374)
We come first to petition PE374, on chronic pain management. The committee agreed to await the publication of a Scottish Executive-commissioned review of chronic pain services, the report of which is reproduced as an annex to paper HC/S2/04/30/4, together with a letter from the Minister for Health and Community Care. A note of suggested possible action is included in paragraphs 10 to 12 of the paper. I think this is the petition on which Mary Scanlon wanted to comment. Do you want to go first, Mary?
Thank you for letting me go first, convener. It is nice to be back at the Health Committee.
It is very good that so many people are engaged in trying to tackle this very worrying issue. It would be particularly helpful if we could follow one or more of the suggestions that have been put to us in the papers; there are several good suggestions. We should write to the Scottish Executive requesting that it report to the committee on the outcome of the consensus conference. That would be particularly helpful. Various other recommendations are set out in the paper.
You are saying that we should adopt the procedure in paragraph 10 of the paper.
There are a couple of issues that go along with that. I support Helen Eadie in suggesting that we follow the recommendations. We need to ask the Scottish Executive—or someone—to examine the cost to Scotland of chronic pain and where the cost savings could come from if we had managed clinical networks and a proper framework. That would quantify some of the issues that surround the petition. We should continue with the petition, but we need to know what the Executive is doing and what its consideration is.
I take it that your position is to adopt the course of action that is recommended in paragraph 10, but that you would add quantification of the current cost of not dealing with chronic pain.
I would also like to know the cost of putting in place a framework. My only qualification is that we should write to the minister asking when the Executive expects to be in a position to respond.
I agree with everything that has been said. I thought that Professor McEwen had looked at some costs. What stands out is that pain clinics save poor patients who suffer chronic pain, and their families, a lot of hardship. Professor McEwen says:
Were the report, its conclusions and recommendations drawn up before we got the letter from the minister? How does the minister's very positive communication to the health boards impact on the recommendations? We should take into account the minister's very positive letter. It might be going some way towards fulfilling the recommendations so that we might not necessarily need to repeat the actions.
I assume that the minister's letter was written after the minister received the report. However, the Health Committee received both at the same time. I dare say that the minister received the report and then wrote the letter.
That might be the point that I am making. We produced this report and called on the Scottish Executive to do certain things, but we did not know about the very positive letter from the minister.
Do you disagree with the course of action that is suggested in paragraph 10?
I am just being lazy, but I am not the only one, by the looks of things. Has the very positive letter from the minister, as acknowledged by Mary Scanlon, impacted on the recommendations in the paper? Is the minister already offering what we are calling for?
The bottom line is that both developments are very encouraging. What the minister suggests he will do is to be welcomed, but the committee is suggesting some good actions which are also very helpful. We are all pushing together in the same direction to address a serious problem.
The recommendations in the paper were drawn up on the basis that we had the report and the minister's letter. I do not think that the report and the minister's letter necessarily negate the committee's continuing to question people along the suggested lines, but we must also acknowledge that the ministerial response was positive. It is more a question of establishing how far that positive response will go in reality.
Organ Retention (PE406)
Petition PE406 is on the law and code of practice regarding post mortem examinations. We agreed previously to await the findings of the Executive's consultation on organ retention and post mortems. The Executive recently announced that it will introduce a bill to deal with the matter, which will follow the forthcoming smoking and health bill. It was originally intended that that bill would deal with post mortem organ retention, but a separate bill will now deal with it.
We could accept all the suggestions in paragraphs 10 to 12, because they are not mutually exclusive. Could we not also close the petition?
We could close the petition because of the forthcoming bill, but I would prefer us to be cautious and to wait until we see the colour of the proposed legislation before we make a final decision on the petition, unless there is a particular reason for closing it now. Clearly, we would like the upcoming bill to include the provision that paragraph 10 suggests, but whether it will be included is another matter.
Will we write to the petitioner for evidence?
I think that we should write to the petitioner to advise her about the proposed bill, but I am not sure that we should call for evidence.
I am happy with that, but I want clarification of the timescale for introduction of the bill. My understanding is that the bill will be introduced before the summer recess. Is that still the plan?
The Executive might introduce the bill at the last minute before the summer recess, to allow us to put out a call for evidence to be submitted over the summer. However, we do not know for sure whether the bill will be introduced then. The Executive's bill on smoking and health will be through all its processes by the summer recess. It will be a question of when the Executive can draft its bill on post mortems. Who knows when that will be? I expect that we will deal with the bill substantively in the autumn, after the summer recess.
The minister told me last week that the bill would be introduced before the summer recess to allow the Health Committee to take a view on where to go with it. Perhaps the clerks should clarify with the Executive when the bill will be introduced.
Perhaps they should do so, but it is probably fair to say that the bill will certainly not be before us within the next six months.
Multiple Sclerosis (Respite Homes) (PE572)
Petition PE572 is on multiple sclerosis and respite homes. We previously agreed to await information from the Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care on current provision in respite care homes. A written response from the commission has been circulated to members and the briefing paper on the petition outlines possible action in paragraphs 11 and 12. Do members have comments?
I am in favour of the suggestions in paragraphs 11 and 12. If I remember correctly, when we discussed respite care we identified that the problem was not the amount of respite places but their appropriateness. For example, young adults might find that their only option for respite care is in a home for frail elderly people. If we agree to take the actions that paragraphs 11 and 12 suggest, we can start trying to get the information that we need about the type of respite places that are available. I am sure that the issue of getting appropriate respite care for adults with disabilities has been raised with every MSP.
I declare an interest because I am a member of the management group of the Aberdeen respite project.
Are members happy for the committee to pursue both the actions that paragraphs 11 and 12 outline and David Davidson's further suggestion?
That concludes public business.
Meeting continued in private until 14:57.
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