Health and Community Care Committee, 22 Mar 2000

Meeting date: Wednesday, March 22, 2000

Official Report 235KB pdf

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Outside Organisations (Contacts)

We now move on to item 6—if I can find my papers. A series of items have been sitting on our agenda for a while. [Interruption.] I have some notes that I am trying to find. I am sorry. Bear with me, while I find my papers.

Several organisations have contacted us, offering information, presentations, possible inquiry topics, visits and so on. Two members of the committee have responded, to say what they think ought to be done.

Three.

Sorry, three members have responded. Two members' responses are included in the paper that we have in front of us.

We have had offers of information from the Office of Public Health in Scotland, and from the Scottish Directors of Public Health. Public health is not being considered directly as part of our on-going work load and agenda, but bearing in mind its importance to the overall health agenda, it might be worth while to find time for a presentation. Do members agree?

We will have to be very disciplined. The paper contains many suggestions for presentations, invitations and so on. I am aware that—

I will just run through the paper and say what I felt. I thought that we would value a presentation on public health.

We had a meeting with the Royal College of General Practitioners on the on-going support and information that it can give to the committee. The college is now in contact with our researcher in the Scottish Parliament information centre and will give information from time to time.

Other organisations have offered to do presentations for us, but some are area specific and some concern matters that would arise at specific times.

We could short-circuit this discussion if the convener, together with the party spokespeople, came up with a set of proposals for specific presentations, as opposed to information, on the basis of members' responses. Perhaps members could have another 24 hours to respond by e-mail.

I am concerned that contacts from outside organisations have been on the agenda for some time, but because of other work, we have not made progress. If the party spokespeople agree with Richard Simpson's suggestion, I will discuss the matter with them.

We should make a decision.

Is this paper an exhaustive list? I made some suggestions to the clerk, but I do not see them—

This is a list of suggestions from outside organisations, not from members. Are you referring to possible witnesses for the community care inquiry?

Yes.

There is another list for that. The list that we are discussing is—

The list mentions visits. I remember that when we talked about the Perth and Kinross—

That is on the community care list.

Is it on this list as well?

No, but some items are on both lists. We are considering a list of representations, from outside organisations, which were made to the committee without our going out and soliciting them. Early in the process, before we started to decide where we wanted to go and what we wanted to do, we might have received letters suggesting visits. We can now include such suggestions in our community care inquiry. If we can clear up the list one way or another, that will give us a clearer programme.

Are we agreed that we will delegate that task to the convener and the party spokespeople?

Members indicated agreement.

I thought that you also wanted members' recommendations. Is that correct?

Yes.