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Mental Health Services<br />(Deaf and Deaf-blind People) (PE808)
Our first current petition is PE808, by Lilian Lawson, on behalf of the Scottish Council on Deafness, which 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—for example, training—for mainstream psychiatric services in the community to make them more accessible to deaf and deaf-blind people in Scotland.
The responses are interesting. Basically, the Deputy Minister for Health and Community Care does not accept the case—that is not an unfair way of paraphrasing what she said. The comment from the John Denmark unit in Manchester was:
I agree with that. It is not good enough that deaf-blind people must travel to the north of England despite all their difficulties. It is difficult enough for people without disabilities to travel to the north of England for treatment, and it is absolutely unreasonable that deaf-blind people should have to do so. The situation is part of the bigger picture of underprovision for deaf and deaf-blind people in Scotland. We lag behind England, Wales and Northern Ireland and we need to push the minister on the matter. In Ayrshire, 46,000 people have a hearing impairment, which is a huge number, and our papers say that 750,000 people in Scotland are affected. The underprovision is almost criminal. The minister needs to do more.
Do we agree to get back to the Executive to ask for a more positive response to the points that have been made on the petition?
National Bird (PE783)
PE783, by James Reynolds on behalf of The Scotsman newspaper, calls on the Scottish Parliament to support the establishment of the golden eagle as the national bird of Scotland.
I certainly agree with that, but there is a great possibility that the Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport has seen none of the correspondence. I suggest that you chase up a response by speaking to her.
I will do that. We will get a response one way or the other. Are members agreed?
Organ Retention (PE790)
PE790, by Lydia Reid on behalf of Justice for the Innocents, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Executive to conduct a public inquiry into organ retention; to consider introducing regulations to standardise the handling of children's bodies and the return of body parts after a procurator fiscal post mortem; and to consider making compensation payments to parents of children whose body parts were stored without permission.
Given that the Minister for Health and Community Care introduced the Human Tissue (Scotland) Bill on 3 June, it might be appropriate to refer the petition to the Health Committee as part of its stage 1 consideration of the bill. I know that people all over Scotland will be pleased with the bill because, like many other MSPs, I have received a considerable volume of correspondence and representations from constituents who have suffered grievously from previous practice. I warmly welcome the fact that the bill has been introduced.
Do members agree to forward the petition to the Health Committee?
NHS Scotland <br />(National Specialist Services) (PE791)
PE791, by Brian McAlorum, calls on the Scottish Parliament to review the criteria and funding mechanisms for national specialist services provided to NHS Scotland by individual health boards, given that the case involving the centre for integrative care at Glasgow homoeopathic hospital has shown that at the moment they are neither transparent nor effective.
The petition was prompted by NHS Greater Glasgow's proposal to close the 15-bed in-patient unit at the Glasgow homoeopathic hospital. Members might or might not be aware that, about a month ago, the board decided not to proceed with the proposal.
I am more than happy for that to be done. I will clarify why there was a response from Argyll and Clyde. We wrote to the national services advisory group, and the person who responded is based in Argyll and Clyde, which is why the letter came back on Argyll and Clyde headed notepaper. However, it is a centralised response. I am happy to take up the suggestion of contacting Greater Glasgow NHS Board.
We should do that, and perhaps we should consider that it might find it easier to come and speak to the committee directly if it is having difficulty in putting pen to paper. We would be grateful to hear from the board and it would not be unreasonable for it to make its views known to us.
My colleague Sandra White was prominent in the campaign to retain the homoeopathic hospital and would want me to say that she is glad that the petition has thrown the issue into the public light and perhaps prompted the volte-face, as John Scott called it.
That is a good suggestion and I am more than happy to find out whether there has been a change in perspective now that we have a change at the top. I am also happy to take up John Scott's suggestion that we offer Greater Glasgow NHS Board the opportunity to come here and speak to us directly. I will certainly make that offer. If it does not take it up, I would expect to receive some response not just because we are asking for it but as a matter of courtesy. The petition related to a decision that the board had to make and I would have thought that it would be in its interests to put in writing an explanation of how it arrived at its conclusions.
Even if the board did not want to respond before the decision was made, it could have done so in the six weeks that have passed since then.
Are members happy that we do that?
Lamlash Bay (No-take Zone and Marine Protected Area) (PE799)
Our next petition, which is by Tom Vella-Boyle, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Executive to support the Community of Arran Seabed Trust's proposals to close an area of Lamlash bay to all forms of marine life extraction, to create a no-take zone, and to close the rest of the bay to mobile fishing gear, to create a marine protected area.
I spoke when the petition came to the committee and it strikes me that certain things have changed since the Executive made its remarks in February. Today the minister has made remarks about fishing effort and last week he launched a marine conservation consultation. The Executive's response covers conflict resolution between different interests. I believe that we should ask the petitioner and Professor Roberts for their comments and ask for an update from the minister. Lamlash bay will potentially be covered by a future organisation for marine conservation on the Clyde, and we should try to encourage the debate around that, which has already developed considerably given the Executive's moves. It would be useful to involve the Executive.
I used to be on the Transport and the Environment Committee when we discussed coastal zonal management, which I am sure should form part of the proposals that I assume are now being made. Perhaps Rob Gibson is better informed on the matter than I am. The responses that we have had indicate nothing more than a divergence of views, which depend on the vested interests that are represented.
Do members agree to go back to the petitioner on the matter? We have now collated the information that Tom Vella-Boyle gave us. It is clear that the petitioners have a lot of expertise in the area. It will be interesting to find out their perspective on the responses. It would be useful if they could collate the responses and form an opinion on them.
Health Professionals (Regulation) (PE802)
PE802 is from Mark Russell and calls on the Scottish Parliament to express its deep concern that, despite health being a devolved matter, the regulation of health professionals is reserved to the Westminster Parliament.
It makes sense to seek the views of the petitioner on the responses that we have received, and perhaps also the opinion of the British Psychological Society.
Getting those responses would allow us to consider the matter further. Is that agreed?
Fishing Industry (PE804)
PE804 is on the common fisheries policy, and came from Carol MacDonald and Morag Ritchie. It calls on the Scottish Parliament to use its influence to return control of the fishing industry to Scotland.
I will keep my comments brief, as I know that time is getting on and the committee is discussing many issues today. I urge the committee to take the matter to the next stage—whatever that might be in the committee's view—and to keep the petition alive. It was signed by a quarter of a million Scots, who believe that control over our fishing grounds should be returned to the Scottish Parliament. The committee should also bear in mind the results of the referendums on the European Union constitution in France and the Netherlands, which demonstrated that people across Europe are disillusioned with centralisation in the EU. It would help the EU to repair the damage if it scrapped the policies that are unpopular among communities throughout the continent. I suggest that the common fisheries policy is one of the most unpopular policies in the EU, particularly here in Scotland, where it has had such damaging consequences.
The Westminster Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee has also published a report, to which the UK Government will respond. Would it be useful for us to keep the petition open and to consider the issue in the light of the response from London as well as the Scottish Executive's comments on the document that was published today? That approach would enable us to continue our consideration and benefit from the perspective of all sides on the action that can be taken.
I agree with that as far as it goes, but you might also want to bring the Environment and Rural Development Committee into the loop. It regularly takes evidence from the Minister for Environment and Rural Development on European issues—we will do so today—and we might highlight the need for more detailed inquiry into the matter. We can do no more than question the minister today, but it might be useful if you informed the committee of your deliberations, with a view to the Executive's future programme.
I am more than happy to do that. We sent the petition to the Environment and Rural Development Committee and there is no difficulty in our keeping it updated on what we have discussed at this meeting. We will keep the petition open pending the result of discussions in London and in the Scottish Executive. However, we should keep to a tight timescale and not let the matter drag on.
Therapeutic Work Initiatives (Funding) (PE820)
PE820 calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Executive to ensure that adequate funding is provided for therapeutic work initiatives to assist people with psychotic psychiatric disability. At its meeting on 23 February, the committee agreed to write to the Scottish Executive, the Scottish Association for Mental Health, the Disability Rights Commission and Capability Scotland and to copy the petition to the Equal Opportunities Committee for information. Do members have views on the petition?
The petition was lodged by Graham Clark, who runs Shamanic Studios, which is a small, non-profit studio in my constituency. I meet him regularly and he readily admits that he has suffered from psychiatric disorders. Through his small organisation he tries not only to do therapeutic work for himself but to help other people who have had mental health problems. He does that by producing DVDs, videos and other easy-access media—if I can put it that way. He seeks a small grant of between £2,500 and £3,000 per year for the retention and maintenance of his studio in Lhanbryde, but he seems to have run into all sorts of difficulties with various departments and he has applied to every funding source that I can think of. He feels frustrated that the Parliament cannot somehow produce a small sum of money that would make a huge difference to an organisation that I think is very valuable, not just in my area but elsewhere—anyone who watches the DVDs will appreciate their value. Are there other mechanisms that he could use? He received a scam e-mail that said that he would receive £5 million, which was not helpful in the circumstances.
I support therapeutic work initiatives and value the benefits that they can bring to people. However, I am hesitant about discussing funding for a specific organisation, because it is not appropriate for the committee to become involved in individual funding decisions. I take on board the generic point that it might be difficult for projects to access funding. In the context of the Executive's funding for local authorities and health boards, could generic support for therapeutic work initiatives be provided, beyond what the Executive provides through grants? Such support could underpin the value of the work that is done.
I support Jackie Baillie's view. However, I note that the response from Capability Scotland raises the point that she mentioned and says that the approach that funders take
Why not? We will ask the petitioner to comment. I hope that we can consider a response from the minister at the same time as we consider the petitioner's response. At that stage, we will consider what more we can do with the petition.
Meeting closed at 12:50.
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