Hansard

I join others in congratulating Bruce Crawford on bringing forward the debate and for his important work with Sue Ryder.

The good work of Sue Ryder is widely recognised by parliamentarians across the chamber. It has almost 70 years’ experience in the field of neurological care; when Sue Ryder speaks, it speaks with authority. I welcome its significant contribution to the care and improvement of the lives of people in Scotland with a neurological condition. Part of that contribution has been in the form of various reports that Sue Ryder has published on the standard of neurological care in Scotland. Those reports highlight the many benefits of consistent care and support. Sue Ryder is clear that a properly delivered health and social care strategy can help people with neurological conditions to live life as fully as possible.

However, in its 2016 report, Sue Ryder highlighted a number of areas of concern. It said that there was a lack of consistent data, that national clinical standards were not being followed, that there was patchy provision of services, that long-term service delivery plans were not in place and that some people with neurological conditions were being treated in non-specialist locations. It was a poor report card on neurological care in Scotland, which led to the Scottish Government rightly initiating a review of clinical standards and making a commitment to gather better data.

Although there is some progress at a national level on data collection, with the first set of data due to be published next spring, sadly not much appears to be changing for people on the ground. Of particular concern is the fact that, for many, the situation appears to be getting worse. Nine of Scotland’s health boards had no neurological services plan, despite that being a requirement of national clinical standards. One said that it had a draft plan, whereas four had plans that were due to expire. It gets worse. Despite there being, rightly, a national policy direction for the development of joint neurological care plans by health boards and local authorities or integration boards, only one had started to do that. Frankly, that is not good enough.

The evidence is clear that, so far, the integration of health and social care has done little to improve services on the ground. I am sure that that is something that everyone across this chamber, regardless of political party, will want to see made right. There is a real risk of people being left behind as the reforms continue. That is why I ask the Scottish Government to do more than produce a national action plan—although that is important—and simply hand it over to integration joint boards and hope for the best. The Scottish Government has to show real and on-going leadership on this issue to make sure that we see genuine improvement in all health boards across the country.

In particular, if the national action plan identifies the need for new resources, I hope, like Bruce Crawford, that the Scottish Government will commit to those new resources. Will Healthcare Improvement Scotland be given the resources to monitor the new standards and drive forward improvements to make sure that we have a consistent approach across the country? That is crucial, because the last set of clinical standards was not being delivered. It was hard to deliver those standards across the country, because nobody was monitoring their implementation.

The Scottish Government has rightly led people to expect that services will continue, and it has worked to deliver an action plan. I hope that we can all get behind that and see those improvements in resources across the country, and see HIS actually monitoring progress and making sure that we have deliverable and delivered clinical standards. I hope that the minister will address that in her closing comments.