Published: Wednesday, 21st July, 2010 12:30pm

Hospice options

Print | Email

I REFER to Mr Derek Johnstone's letter in respect of St Margaret of Scotland Hospice and, in particular, I would like to address the question which he posed to me namely, to name the options which I said the NHS board had recycled and which were rejected by the hospice.

Let me make it clear to Mr Johnstone that I speak from a position of detailed knowledge and authority of all the issues discussed over the years, as I had been a former member of the Greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board, and various other NHS boards for over 21 years, and first became involved when the issues around Blawarthill surfaced in 2000.

In 2008 the board was asked to consider three options for St Margaret's, namely, enhanced social care with nursing, care home with nursing and, NHS continuing care for the mentally ill.

However, no sooner had the ink dried on the said options when the first option, enhanced social care with nursing was swiftly withdrawn as officers probably realised that Glasgow City Council would be providing this service when the new Blawarthill opens in 2012/2013, so that left the hospice with two options to consider which it did, and rejected for reasons which it has explained and explained exhaustively.

However, for the purposes of clarification, I will repeat — the hospice provides hospice care.

Since January 2009, I have been posing many questions to board officers and I believed I was being thwarted in my attempt to get to the truth, hence why I made my allegations to the cabinet secretary for Health on February 1 2010 as I also believed, and still do, that the decision my colleagues took in February 2009 was fatally flawed.

They were not in full possession of all the facts, particularly the financial aspect of the Blawarthill Project and the implications it had for St Margaret's.

How Mr Johnstone reached the conclusion that the health board has always acted openly is beyond me as it really bears no resemblance to the truth.

In my view, the health board has been less than open and transparent with the public and indeed with me, even when I was a member of the board.

I would therefore like to know from the cabinet secretary, where the "range of options" is which she spoke about in Parliament on March 11 2010 and in a subsequent letter to me of March 18 and copied to many politicians.

I have seen no such options coming forward from the health board, and the cabinet secretary must now explain to the public what exactly she meant when she stood up in Parliament on March 11.

In my view, there still exists at the health board this "take it or leave it" mentality and intransigent minds, and the chairman really appears to be doing very little to ask his officers to come up with other options.

What about the option of allowing St Margaret's to provide entirely palliative care, a proposal which the hospice sent to the health board in October 2008, as there is clearly a need for this type of service in that part of the world, particularly in West Dunbartonshire as identified in the board's own Palliative Care Health Needs Assessment which was published in February this year.

Can the health board explain to the people why this is not being considered and while it is at it, can it also explain why Blawarthill cannot care for the patient group it has asked the hospice to provide for and allow the hospice to continue to provide excellent palliative and continuing care which it has been providing for the past 60 years.

The board chairman ought to take control of his board and instruct his officers that what is on the table for discussion at the moment is wholly unacceptable.

The cabinet secretary instructed the health board to engage with the hospice.

The hospice submitted a proposal which would be in keeping with its history, philosophy, ethos and core values and yet the health board appears insistent on trying to recycle options which have already been rejected as inappropriate.

What the health board is failing to grasp is the obvious fact that the hospice is about palliative and good quality end of life care.

It helps no-one having a slanging match in the press, not least because it can and does cause a great deal of distress and anxiety for the very people who work at the hospice and ,equally importantly, the very patients and their loved ones who need the hospice most.

John Bannon MBE (former member, Greater Glasgow and Clyde health Board until March 31 2010), Knightswood