Hansard

Thank you. It is important to recognise that we are dealing with individuals; in Parliament, we tend to get lost in dealing with categories. The minister says that there are not significant numbers involved, but if there is one patient in a care home who might be ineligible because they are mobile enough, although they do not have the capacity to recognise the dangers of traffic, that is one person too many. I appreciate that this is a pilot and I welcome the SSI—I think that it contains important changes—but I know of patients who would otherwise be eligible but will not be as the SSI is currently formulated. I hope that the minister will agree to, and that the working party will quickly examine, a careful evaluation of those who might be eligible were the criteria to be extended to allow people to qualify other than on the grounds of mobility. In other words, if they receive free personal care—and they also have a mental disorder of a degree and severity that makes it difficult for them to recognise the dangers of traffic—I think that they require sufficient support to be eligible. I had a relative in that position, so I am speaking from not just a professional or political point of view, but a personal point of view. The minister said that the numbers in the group who receive NHS continuing care would not be significant and that the reason for leaving them out is because they might not be eligible for 12 months. I refer him to the Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland report on people with learning disability, in which the delay in discharging those patients into the community is said to have been extremely significant. Over 35 per cent of patients with learning disability were not discharged in an adequate time. Indeed, if you examine code 9 discharges—that is, of those waiting for complex care packages in the community—you see that the delays can often be over 12 months. For those individuals then to be, effectively, incarcerated in hospital and unable to be taken out is simply not acceptable. I urge the minister, in his final response, to provide the committee with a guarantee that both of those groups will be evaluated fully within, or alongside, the pilot scheme. Unless I receive that assurance, I will press the motion to annul. I really have no wish to do so because, as the minister indicated, that would delay a pilot scheme that is extremely worthwhile and valuable. Nevertheless, I feel that the exclusion of those individuals is wholly inappropriate. I move, That the Local Government and Regeneration Committee recommends that the Disabled Persons (Badges for Motor Vehicles) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2016 (SSI 2016/72) be annulled.