Chamber and committees

Thank you for that reflection on the various responses that were received in respect of this petition. Are colleagues content with the recommendation, as put to the committee?

Members indicated agreement.

Can I pursue that a little further in the context of my meetings with parents in Wishaw? The parents spoke about the situation that might develop for other parents post the implementation of these changes. We are talking here about families in extremis because we are talking about the sickest child. One parent said that his wife was left in a life-threatening state after the birth of the baby and that, had the new model been in place, he would have been left with an invidious choice, with his wife and child being not at the same hospital but potentially one being in Aberdeen and one being in the local hospital. There are also siblings in the family. In listening to those people talk about the family-centred care package, I noticed that those other responsibilities do not seem to necessarily be accommodated within the thinking of those who are offering support.

Does yet more work need to be done on what is provided within family-centred care? Clearly, it might be that accommodation and travel costs are covered but parents may have other children and there could be a need to provide emergency childcare to support that family in those circumstances. That does not seem to be part of the package at the moment. I think that when parents said that they did not feel supported enough, they felt that although there are provisions to meet some of the emergency financial pressures that they were faced with, there is not the comprehensive level of support that they felt would be helpful. In the conversations with parent groups, has that all been teased out? Could the provision be made as easy as possible to access in such circumstances for families in extremis—and in an unplanned way, obviously, rather than a planned situation where people can anticipate that they might be going to be in a hospital further away from where they might have expected?

You referred to the phasing that has already taken place. What have been the outcomes of that? What has been the success rate in terms of mortality?

In essence, we have confidence in the model that we are pursuing and it is underwritten by the clinicians and others who have been involved in the design, the development and the recommendations that are being implemented, but it will be some time before we can absolutely determine that the decisions that were made were in fact the correct ones.

That brings us to the end of the public part of our meeting. Our next meeting is scheduled to take place on Wednesday, 14 January 2026.

I accept that that was the case.

I think that we are getting to the end of this element but I want to allow you to reflect on one thing. I think that you touched on all the people in the group that made the decisions being there for their professional experience and judgment, rather than as representatives of their hospitals. When that final decision was made, however, there was a residual feeling in one or two of the other units that they potentially were not represented. In your own mind, have you discounted any sense of bias?

The first continued petition is the very important petition that we have been considering for some time, following our visit to University hospital Wishaw in September and our evidence session at our previous committee meeting. PE2099, which was lodged by Lynne McRitchie, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to stop the planned downgrading—it is important to say that that is what it is—of established and high-performing specialist neonatal intensive care services across NHS Scotland from level 3 to level 2, and to commission an independent review of the decision in the light of contradictory expert opinions on centralising services.

We last considered the petition at our previous meeting, when we heard evidence from the British Association of Perinatal Medicine and then from the best start perinatal sub-group. I am delighted that today we are taking evidence from Jenni Minto, the Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health, and her supporting officials Kirstie Campbell, unit head of maternity, neonatal and IVF policy, and Danielle Le Poidevin, neonatal policy manager. Minister, please invite your colleagues to join in when you think it appropriate, or they can signal to me if they would like to offer an additional contribution.

We are also joined by our colleague Clare Adamson MSP. I will invite Clare to join the questioning after the committee members have spoken, or, if she lets me know, we may bring her in on a key point. Minister, I know that you would like to make some opening remarks before we move to questions, so over to you.

Thank you, minister. Let us start where we are all agreed. Any concerns that there were financial motivations have been dispelled to the committee’s satisfaction. We are convinced from the evidence that we have heard that the best interests of babies have been at the forefront of the decision-making process. We are agreed on that point.

I also agree that there has been a certain amount of confusion and misinformation. I was careful to say at the start again that some units are being downgraded, and are not being closed. I will come to the detail of that.

However, where we are still wrestling is that there was the prospect of a reduction in the number of units at the full level of services, down to somewhere between three and five, and we landed at three. Concerns have been expressed about the geographical inconsistency of Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and the south of Scotland, and all the way up to Wishaw, and therefore, the central belt being underprovided.

Another thing that impressed the committee was that we heard from the specialist services last week—those who had been involved in the decision—and there was a caveat to their support for their own recommendations. That caveat is that the capacity, resourcing and everything that is required to ensure that this model can work has to be in place. The committee, given that we are politicians of long standing, have all, from personal experience—not only in the field of health but elsewhere—been aware of similar initiatives for all manner of services, where, in the event, that did not prove to be the case. For the lives of very fragile newborn babies, not having everything in place right from the start would be a concern. So, there is the geographical issue and the question whether the resource will be in place.

The committee understands—although I have not seen the letter; Davy Russell will speak to it in a little more detail—that the clinicians at Glasgow have written asking for the proposal to be paused, because they do not believe that Glasgow has the capacity, that it is currently overstretched and therefore unable to take up the commitment that is being suggested that it would embrace. That rings alarm bells for us as a committee because it plays directly to our concern that the capacity will not be in place when this goes live.

I am sorry; that was a long preamble to my question. You said a moment ago that the changes would evolve when the capacity is in place. My initial questions are about the geography, the capacity, the resilience of the preparation for that capacity and when you think that it would be safe, given the concerns that are being expressed? If Glasgow is at full capacity, we would have that geographical issue that has been represented to us time and again of parents finding their baby separated from them by being as far away as Aberdeen. When do you think that it would be safe to deploy the new model?

Do we agree with Mr Torrance’s recommendation?

Members indicated agreement.

Are colleagues content with that suggestion?

Members indicated agreement.