Committee
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee 24 September 2025
24 Sep 2025 · S6 · Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Item of business
Healthcare
Another theme is that of diagnostic and treatment pathways. We need to close the loop. I have a case on my desk of one of my constituents who was diagnosed with cancer and had a mastectomy in 2017. She is still waiting now, in 2025, for reconstructive surgery, which is totally unacceptable. What mechanisms are in place to close the loop? Reconstruction is a vital part of treatment and the woman’s mental health is at risk in this case.
In the same item of business
The Convener
Con
Item 2 is a healthcare thematic evidence session. People are joining us for the meeting because, as we move towards the end of the parliamentary session and ...
The Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care (Neil Gray)
SNP
Thank you, convener. First, I want to express my appreciation for the opportunity to be here. As you said, it is my first time both in this room and appearin...
The Convener
Con
Why do you think that those gaps exist? It is sometimes perplexing that a certain level of service, which seems quite critical, is available to people who pr...
Neil Gray
SNP
Yes. I understand that, and that is the constant dilemma between local and national decision making. Where we rightly expect there to be local decision makin...
The Convener
Con
Sometimes, the committee is alerted to conditions that we had not heard of before. It can be easy to follow the pathway when you are talking about high-level...
Neil Gray
SNP
Our colleague Emma Roddick has brought great attention to Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and to the work of the petitioner to ensure that the matter is brought to th...
The Convener
Con
In that case, I want to look at the centralisation of services, which has become a more common phenomenon in relation to the services that we provide. As you...
Neil Gray
SNP
It goes back to the point that this is about specialisation rather than centralisation. On the point about patients having to travel, the national treatment ...
Fergus Ewing (Inverness and Nairn) (Ind)
Ind
I have two issues with regard to the first area we are looking at—patient experience. The cabinet secretary is well aware that I have raised the issue of vac...
Neil Gray
SNP
Mr Ewing and I, along with GPs in his constituency and with Mr Mountain, have corresponded and met repeatedly on the issue, and I well recognise the concerns...
Fergus Ewing
Ind
Will the contract be restored to GPs before the winter?
Neil Gray
SNP
I understand that flexibility on such services is already offered, and it is up to NHS Highland to ensure that they are delivered. I am not sure whether that...
Davy Russell (Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse) (Lab)
Lab
How vigorously do you monitor the output? For instance, a very common theme on the doorsteps was about waiting two years for a cataract operation. Say NHS La...
Neil Gray
SNP
Davy Russell has alighted on an incredibly salient point, on which we have been working with boards over the past six to 12 months to optimise the capacity t...
Edward Mountain (Highlands and Islands) (Con)
Con
I, too, welcome the national treatment centre in Highland. It proves to me that people can travel for healthcare if they need to do so. In the Highlands, we ...
Neil Gray
SNP
Convener, I thank Edward Mountain for raising the issue, as he has done in correspondence with me, persistently ensuring that the needs of his constituents i...
Edward Mountain
Con
The problem is not just vascular surgery. It is that we will never have the population density and, therefore, the demand to outstrip need in Aberdeen or Tay...
Neil Gray
SNP
I appreciate Mr Mountain’s point, although I do not agree with the first point that he made. I do not think that it is an inevitability that services will al...
Jackie Baillie (Dumbarton) (Lab)
Lab
I recognise the cabinet secretary’s intention to optimise planning capacity, but the reality is that that is not being delivered in practice. I will give two...
Neil Gray
SNP
Ms Baillie and I talked about those points in the most recent of our one-to-one discussions, which I offer to Opposition health and social care spokespeople ...
Jackie Baillie
Lab
Patient experience tells me that that is not happening on the ground in a real way. When might we expect that to make a difference that people can see?
Neil Gray
SNP
That work is under way now, so I expect that situation to start improving as of now.
The Convener
Con
The second theme is on diagnostic and treatment pathways. Marie McNair will lead us through those questions.
Marie McNair (Clydebank and Milngavie) (SNP) (Committee Substitute)
SNP
Good morning. Following on from the earlier discussion, I am interested to hear, on behalf of petitioners and my constituents, how the Scottish Government is...
Neil Gray
SNP
On the cancer front, we work very closely with the Scottish cancer network, the Scottish Cancer Coalition and individual cancer charities that either help to...
Marie McNair
SNP
How are decisions made about introducing national screening programmes?
Neil Gray
SNP
That is done in concert with the UK National Screening Committee. Like all Governments across the UK, we take our lead from the experts in that committee. Ba...
The Convener
Con
One of the petitions that touches on healthcare is one of the oldest that we have, so I will invite one of our oldest members to ask about it.
Neil Gray
SNP
One of the most experienced, shall we say.
Fergus Ewing
Ind
I will take that as a compliment, convener. Mary Ramsay submitted a petition in May 2019—six years ago—asking for some kind of adequate provision for essent...