Meeting of the Parliament 21 May 2014
Lanarkshire’s mental health plan was about far more than the two wards at Monklands, but they were Alex Neil’s main focus, even as cabinet secretary. The plan was years in the making and was for the whole of Lanarkshire. It was backed by service users, carers, clinicians, NHS managers, council partners, voluntary organisations and on several occasions by the health secretary at the time, Nicola Sturgeon, who saw the improvements that that robust plan would bring across the board, including to Monklands. They saw the bigger picture.
The plan would have funded a new intensive psychiatric care unit for NHS Lanarkshire, which was the only mainland board without one. It would also have supported the development of intensive home treatment and young people’s services, greatly expanded community mental health, and provided a safer and more sustainable medical rota. There was
“no alternative option”
that could
“deliver the same benefits”.
Those are not my words—that is what the chief executive of NHS Lanarkshire, Ian Ross, wrote in an email at 9.45 on 26 September 2012.
Alex Neil chose to ignore that advice and vetoed the plan, with no reason given. When he was asked a question that afternoon on mental health services at Monklands, he did not even tell Parliament that he had rejected it. He said that NHS Lanarkshire was reconsidering. It was not; it was reconfiguring its plans on Alex Neil’s instruction. We know that because, in an email that morning, Alex Neil told it to pick the worst of four options. It took us 18 months to extract that email from the Scottish Government. Now we know why it fought so hard to keep it a secret.
However, there is much more. The pretence and manipulation was not an isolated incident. We have an email that says that Alex Neil was signing off lines in October, and we have a letter that he wrote in November. More important, his diktat of 26 September was not rescinded. One email even stated that the strategy was ready to go
“but due to concerns raised by Alex Neil ... Derek Feeley asked Tim to defer taking it to the Board till after the local authority elections at which point it would be approved.”
We could have had the best plan before May 2012, but over a year later we got a poor substitute.
Since the original plan was kicked into touch by the cabinet secretary, I have heard that problems include a patchwork community service, staffing problems, difficulties with junior doctors’ training and unused capacity at Wishaw. What about the recurrent costs instead of money being freed up to address those issues? Most important, that worst option does not provide the service that the people of Lanarkshire have a right to expect.
We have strong evidence and we believe that Alex Neil has misled Parliament. He has also betrayed the public and health professionals with a scandalous political fix. He should resign, or else the First Minister, rather than trying to defend him, should sack him.
16:03