Committee
Public Petitions Committee 01 March 2016
01 Mar 2016 · S4 · Public Petitions Committee
Item of business
Continued Petitions
NHS Centre for Integrative Care (PE1568)
I think that that was another slightly unsatisfactory evidence session. As Hanzala Malik has said, it was difficult not to arrive at the conclusion that the decision was motivated by cost factors. To put it bluntly, although nobody will use such language, I am left with the impression that some people believe that you might as well be banging voodoo drums as using the services that the centre provides, so they set aside—because it is inconvenient—the patient response, which is that people apparently have a much higher level of satisfaction than is the case in many areas of traditional healthcare. The difficulty is that, at some point, unless the Scottish Government takes a national view of the role that it believes that complementary medicine, in its broadest sense, should play in the NHS, the health boards that are charged with making the decision appear to be moving inexorably towards a position in which the service will not be provided. We should carry forward the petition in the legacy paper, because we want to find out the outcome of the current review but, after that, I think that we should refer the subject in its holistic sense to the successor committee of the Health and Sport Committee in the new session as one that it might want to take a more serious look at in the context of broader healthcare policy. I do not know how much further we would be able to take the issue at that point.
In the same item of business
The Convener
Lab
PE1568, by Catherine Hughes, is on the funding of, access to and promotion of the NHS centre for integrative care. Elaine Smith is staying with us for consid...
Elaine Smith
Lab
I was just going to listen to the committee’s thoughts about the evidence session and about how you were intending to take the matter forward. I think that i...
John Wilson
Ind
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...
Hanzala Malik (Glasgow) (Lab)
Lab
Dr Kohli made a very gallant case for why the decision was made, but I failed to grasp why it was made when all the witnesses agreed that the patients were h...
Jackson Carlaw
Con
I think that that was another slightly unsatisfactory evidence session. As Hanzala Malik has said, it was difficult not to arrive at the conclusion that the ...
The Convener
Lab
I agree with that. I think that there is a large body of work that the next health committee could look at. Questions have been raised because of the evidenc...
John Wilson
Ind
I stand to be corrected, but it is my understanding that the CIC was supposed to become the national pain clinic. Therefore, there are other issues at stake....
Jackson Carlaw
Con
To respond to John Wilson, the one thing that I thought we gleaned from the evidence session was that the national pain relief centre would not be contingent...
John Wilson
Ind
I agree that the witnesses told us that the national pain centre would not be contingent on the existence of the centre for integrative care, but I would lik...
The Convener
Lab
That is a very valid point. If there is to be only one centre to serve the whole of Scotland, we cannot have the local health board footing the bill for it a...
Elaine Smith
Lab
On that point, there was also concern that the national pain centre might exist instead of the centre for integrative care, so that is another issue.
The Convener
Lab
Okay. We need to get clarification on those issues, which requires us to keep the petition open in order to pursue them. Members have made a number of sugges...