Hansard

I agree with Elaine Smith. It is an issue that I would like to see included in our legacy paper. There are a number of decisions that are still to be made by Greater Glasgow and Clyde NHS Board. Lanarkshire NHS Board’s decision and the way in which the board made it has come under some scrutiny. We were assured that patients would continue to receive a level of care commensurate with their illness, but I believe that there is a letter in today’s Herald that raises a case where it was initially attempted to refer someone to the CIC, but it took eight months for them to be referred on to a consultant to be dealt with. There are clearly issues around patient-centred care. Patients may feel that they would benefit from going to the CIC, but Lanarkshire NHS Board has taken a decision to withdraw supported funding for any future patients, and that raises questions about the quality of care that patients receive and their confidence in the treatment that they receive. There have been some interesting follow-up submissions, as was the case with the previous petition that we considered. There has been some interesting analysis. One of the submissions goes into the cost benefits of homoeopathic treatments in particular, and it gives a startling indication of the savings that are being made for the NHS—not those that could be made, but those that are being made. More work can be done on the matter. I would be keen to pass on some of the submissions that we have received to the Scottish Government and to NHS Scotland to ask them for their views, to try and disprove some of the evidence that we have received for today’s meeting and to give us some clear indications. If we continue to rely on health boards funding the CIC, the danger is that it could always be pulled at any time that health boards decide no longer to send patients to the centre. It is about trying to preserve a centre that is delivering for the whole of Scotland, although we are in effect relying on one health board to pick up the costs for it. It is clear that, at some point, Greater Glasgow and Clyde NHS Board may decide to withdraw those services for patients who feel that they would benefit from the treatment that the centre provides.