Meeting of the Parliament 22 December 2022
Thank you, Presiding Officer. Best wishes for the festive period to you and all the staff of the Parliament.
I will give a brief bit of background to the situation with Moray maternity services, because the issue has been debated many times in the Parliament. Members will be aware that, in 2018, a temporary downgrade for one year was announced and it continues now, as we come to the end of 2022. I asked for tonight’s debate and lodged the motion because, just last week, NHS Grampian finally produced its plan to deliver model 6, which is a return to a consultant-led maternity service. As this is the final debate of the year, it is important that members from across the political spectrum and the cabinet secretary can articulate their initial thoughts on model 6, raise questions about it and seek reassurance.
As a local representative, I appreciate the work of keep MUM and the maternity voices partnership, who have done and continue to do incredible work in raising the cases of Moray mums and families.
I also appreciate the fact that this is a cross-party issue. Richard Lochhead is a minister and so cannot fully contribute today, but he is here again. Rhoda Grant has been a great champion of the issue, as have my Highlands and Islands colleagues Jamie Halcro Johnston, Edward Mountain and Donald Cameron. I welcome that cross-party consensus.
I do not want to dwell on this point, but I note that, when I raised the issue as the member of Parliament for Moray in the House of Commons last week, and as I was articulating the concerns of Moray women and families, I was told, “Diddums” by Brendan O’Hara, the MP for Argyll and Bute. I hope and am sure that the cabinet secretary will want to disassociate himself from the words of his colleague.
Model 6 was proposed by NHS Grampian at its board meeting last week. From the outset, I welcome the fact that we now have a plan to deliver it. We all want a return to consultant-led maternity services at Dr Gray’s. My worry is about the timing. The report states that it could take up to a total of nine years from 2018 to reintroduce the service. I am also worried about the wording. Page 7 of the report states that
“consultant-led births could take place as early as the end of 2026 or early 2027”.
I worry that the word “could” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that report. Let us remember that we were told that it would take one year from 2018. We are now in 2022, coming into 2023, and we are being told that it could happen at the end of 2026 or into 2027. We need the pace to be far quicker than that.