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Highlands and Islands Labour MSP Rhoda Grant is encouraged at the announcement that the “preferred corridor” for the replacement of the Rest and Be Thankful will be announced later this month and says the public deserve a “5-star permanent solution”.

This comes after the Cabinet Secretary for Transport on Friday answered the MSP’s Parliamentary Questions surrounding the A83 at the Rest and Be Thankful. In these responses, he outlined that the design and assessment work is well underway and that the Scottish Government anticipates that the preferred corridor will be announced later this month.

However, notably, the Government did not reveal when they would publish a full timetable for the replacement of this notorious stretch of road.

The MSP has been supporting calls for a replacement road to be agreed, planned, constructed and opened within the term of the next Scottish Parliament.

Rhoda Grant said: “I’m heartened and encouraged by this announcement. Its vital that this project moves forward without delay. The people of Argyll have been inconvenienced enough.

“Looking at the eyewatering amount of money that has been put into papering over the cracks of the Rest and Be Thankful, I would plead with the Government to invest the necessary funds to ensure that Argyll has a five-star permanent solution and that an alternative interim solution is also put in place.”

Mrs Grant continued: “I will continue to pressure the Government to move this project along so that the solution, whichever one they pick, is opened as soon as possible.”

As part of the £87M invested in maintaining the A83 since 2007, the Scottish Government have spent over £15M in landslide measures at the Rest and Be Thankful. This has kept the A83 open for an estimated 48 days, when it otherwise would have been closed.

Additionally, the recent measures including debris netting, improved drainage and a 175m long, 6m high debris bund above the Old Military Road have kept the road in operation for all but eight occasions over the past 2 months (5 partial or whole nights and 3 partial or whole days) with further mitigation measures to be announced in the coming weeks

Highlands and Islands Labour MSP, Rhoda Grant, is supporting the Caithness Roads Recovery campaign.

Mrs Grant was contacted by the group asking for her backing and she has written to Highland Council to ask specifically about the predicted cost of road repairs in Caithness and North West Sutherland, but also across the region.

She has also written to the Scottish Government’s Finance Secretary, Kate Forbes, pointing out the campaign’s request for emergency funding, asking what assessment the Government had made of road repairs and what it was going to do to tackle the problem.

“Congratulations to the community for starting this action, as it’s an issue that affects us all, whether, a driver, a pedestrian, biker or cyclist,” said Mrs Grant.

“I’ve looked at its Facebook page and it’s quite eye-opening to see the photos taken by residents in each area. I do worry that it won’t be damaged wheels and tyres, but people may be injured.

“With spring nearly upon us, and people getting out and about a bit more, large potholes and crumbling road surfaces are being seen across the region.

“And, with many people considering a staycation this year, these roads are likely to face increased traffic. While we want to encouraged tourists we must also ensure that the infrastructure to cope with them is in place.

“I completely understand that the local authority may be struggling to catch up with services after coping with the pandemic and they certainly won’t have extra cash on a handy money tree.
“I am hoping that the Government don’t come back with the usual response, that it’s totally up to Highland Council to manage the budget.”

Highlands and Islands Labour MSP, Rhoda Grant, has accused the Scottish Government of badly letting down the Shetland community for not helping the funding of the islands’ new MRI scanner.

Mrs Grant wrote to Health Secretary, Jeane Freeman, asking if she would now consider chipping in some money to support the service following the fundraising target being reached and the tremendous efforts of people on the islands

However, Ms Freeman has told Mrs Grant while the benefits of the scanner are acknowledged additional Scottish funding is not justified.

“The Health Secretary is basing her calculations on the fact that demand for the scanner would be one day a week, but this is what island and rural areas always face, the balance between the number of people using the service and the fact that a service is so much better when it is close-to-home,” said Mrs Grant.

“We will never break free of the centralisation of services if it is purely a numbers game and it is about time the Scottish Government woke up to that.

“I realise that specialist treatment and complicated surgery will nearly always been be in main centres, to capture the skills and experience of consultants and surgeons, but equipment such as a scanner will make such a difference to people who may already be very sick and face long journeys otherwise.

“It is very disappointing to hear the Scottish Government continue with the same old argument.”

Mr Freeman said: “As I set out in my previous letter, while the benefit of an MRI for the local community is acknowledged by the Scottish Government, we must consider services and funding of those services to ensure appropriate provision across all of Scotland.

“As a consequence, regrettably, it is not always possible to justify funding for provision of all services in all areas. The demand for scanning in Shetland is around 1 day per week, and there would still be a need for specialised scans and supportive care to continue to be provided off the island. This is an example of where justification with regards to provision of additional Scottish Government funding (above that already provided to the Board), in this case for an MRI scanner in Shetland, is not always possible.”

The Scottish Parliament’s Public Petitions Committee heard this morning that a ground-breaking technology – backed by an Inverness campaigner – is now with NHS Tayside and should start treating its first patient this year.

The public petitions committee reconvened to hear more on Mary Ramsay’s petition asking the Scottish Government to back the provision of magnetic resonance-guided focused ultrasound technology for the treatment of patients with Essential Tremor.

But Mrs Ramsay, Chair of the Scottish Tremor Society, heard, although the equipment was in situ after a fundraising target to buy it was reached, the Scottish Government is still holding its previous position that patients will not be treated under the NHS in Scotland as is now happening in England.

However, the committee agreed to not closing her petition but to continue to include it in its legacy paper for its successor committee after the Scottish Parliament elections in May, along with a suggestion to then seek an update from new Health Secretary on the Scottish Government’s plans to make the treatment more widely available.

After the committee, Mrs Ramsay, who has Essential Tremor, said: “It was a pleasant surprise that the committee could keep the petition open and pass it on. The committee has been very supportive, and I appreciate that, and really can’t thank them enough.

“Although disappointing that the Government has not seen where I am coming from, the fact that I have cross-party support will hopefully be beneficial for the next Parliament.

“I now have the support of the Neurological Alliance, a coalition of organisations working to transform the lives of those living with a neurological condition, which has also added strength to the campaign.”

Highlands and Islands Labour MSP, Rhoda Grant, a long-time supporter of Mrs Ramsay’s campaign, spoke to the committee, thanked members for all the work that they had done and stressed that Mrs Ramsay was not going to give up pressing for the treatment to be widely available in Scotland.

“I can’t help feeling we are making progress but not fast enough. It does not appear that the Scottish Government has done anything to assist the process of bringing this ground-breaking technology to Scotland,” she said.

“I know Mary Ramsay shares my frustration. While understanding the pandemic has slowed things down, there is also a real concern that those requiring treatment now are suffering because of this delay.”

In a submission to the committee, Health Secretary, Jeane Freeman, said NHS Scotland National Services Division was continuing to engage with clinicians in Dundee and commissioning colleagues in England to assess how this treatment might be made available to Scottish patients. However, in light of Covid-19, new applications through National Specialist Services Committee were paused. Also, the equipment would begin initially treating one patient on a trial basis for six months.

Mrs Grant said it was disappointing that it could not be more widely available.

“The technology offers faster, safer treatment and is therefore more cost effective. It could be available in Scotland this summer and that would be a game changer for those suffering from Essential Tremor,” she added.

“This delay is of no comfort for those waiting for this treatment and it adds to the frustration that this is available to others with the same condition in the rest of the UK.”

Committee members, MSPs Gail Ross, Maurice Corry and Tom Mason backed the petition being carried forward to the next Parliament, as did Committee Convener, Johann Lamont, saying that she believed the Scottish Government response was “half-hearted”.

* Previously the public petitions committee heard from Professor Dipankar Nandi, about the benefits and cost effectiveness of magnetic resonance-guided focused ultrasound technology for the treatment of patients with Essential Tremor. The professor is based at Imperial College in London and answered questions from MSPs via a video link.

* He told the committee he estimated 10,000 people would have a significant tremor in Scotland and would benefit from the treatment. He explained the technology and science was nothing new and the treatment was an alternative to Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) which involved invasive surgery and inserting a probes inside the head.

* Professor Nandi said NHS England had authorised the treatment for 150 patients a year at his unit.
Mrs Ramsay has Deep Brain Stimulation where electrodes are placed in the brain to help alleviate the condition which causes involuntary and rhythmic shaking affecting almost any part of the body. She will not benefit from the new treatment but is passionate that others will.

* While NHS Scotland has previously rejected funding based on its interpretation of the evidence and NICE guidance, NHS England has now agreed to fund the Magnetic Resonance-guided Focused Ultrasound technology based on the same evidence and countries worldwide already use it

* Fundraising for the equipment was run by the University of Dundee. The technology uses MRI imaging to guide high powered, focused ultrasound to a very small point. At that point, molecules are vibrated extremely quickly, which creates intense local heat which destroys the tissue. The technology allows clinicians to target a very specific focal point – with very little heating produced in front of and behind that point, so only the targeted tissue is affected.

MSP Rhoda Grant has welcomed a boost for Inverness and Nairn after a five-year contract was signed between Capgemini and the Metropolitan Police.

The Highlands & Islands Labour MSP said she was delighted for the staff who are going to be part of this project.

She said: “This is great news for Inverness and Nairn where the IT firm has bases. At a time when the employment sector is rocky and too many people are in insecure jobs this will help to provide steady employment and I will be writing to congratulate Cap Gemini on this success.”

It comes as Scottish Labour announces plans for a Business Network to grow new jobs.

The Scottish Labour Business Network is to be led by former Trade Minister Brian Wilson.

It will convene business leaders and produce new policy ideas designed to help businesses grow so that new jobs can be created.

Scottish Labour’s new leader Anas Sarwar has said the party will “have a laser-focus on job creation and engage positively with businesses to create the sustainable economic recovery we need”.

Highlands and Islands Labour MSP, Rhoda Grant, has said she is becoming ‘increasingly exasperated’ that her repeated pleas to the Scottish Government to listen to the concerns of local business over the stringent eligibility criteria in place for sectoral funding continue to fall on deaf ears.

Mrs Grant raised the matter twice this week, with the First Minister (for the second time), and with the Cabinet Secretary for Local Government, Aileen Campbell, during Topical Questions in Parliament today (03/03/2021).

She asked the Cabinet Secretary what discussions the Scottish Government has had regarding changing the ring fence criteria concerning the sectoral funds which are distributed by local authorities and appealed for the Cabinet Secretary to listen to the pleas from business, some of whom are paying off staff as they can no longer afford to keep them on.

Speaking afterwards Mrs Grant said “It is becoming increasingly exasperating to receive the same stock answer time and time again from Scottish Ministers that they are listening and funding is in place.

“They continue to punt the discretionary funding that has been made available to local authorities to catch those who don’t qualify for sectoral grants but in Highland, the amount available per business from the discretionary funding is capped at £2,000 per business.

She continued “£2,000 is not going to save these businesses and I know owners are having sleepless nights as they prepare to pay staff off. This is heartbreaking on so many levels, for the owners who are watching their dreams disappear, for the staff who are losing their jobs, and for the Highland economy which is so reliant on tourism for its existence.

“The Government says it is listening to local authorities, and to business, but I’m not seeing much evidence of that from my inbox.”

Reacting to the shock announcement this week that social care provider HC-One is having to sell off and transfer care homes during the biggest public health crisis in all our lifetimes, Highlands and Islands MSP Rhoda Grant has contacted the Cabinet Secretary for Health urging the Scottish Government to take the homes in Scotland under local authority control.

In her email to Jean Freeman this morning, Mrs Grant has written:

“I am writing to urge you to press your government to bring the care homes in Scotland which are going on the market under public ownership.
“This move would show real commitment from the Scottish Government to meet the promise it made in its Programme for Government to support Scottish Labour’s visionary plan for a National Care Service.

“The move by HC-One to sell off those care homes will be terrible news for worn out key workers and will affect them very badly, and it will be causing stress and anxiety for vulnerable service users, and their worried families. I am deeply concerned and would urge the government to step in. I would echo what the GMB Union has said: The announcement that one of our biggest social care providers is having to sell off and transfer care homes during the biggest public health crisis in all our lifetimes just shows how badly in need of repair our social care system is.

“Please bring the homes being sold under local authority control with the Scottish Government funding the transition costs.

“A properly funded national care service has never been so vital.”

 

HIGHLANDS & ISLANDS MSP Rhoda Grant is “optimistic” she will win her campaign for eyesight treatment clinics to be delivered on Skye for people suffering Wet Macular Degeneration.

Mrs Grant has been urging government ministers and health chiefs to bring those services closer to avoid the need for poor-sighted elderly patients to take the 200-mile round-trip to Inverness every few weeks for the injections they need to prolong their sight.

Pointing to some success, the health board’s latest progress update for the MSP, says eyesight specialists had been recruited and some eyesight treatment services would be delivered for the first time on Skye within weeks.

Chief officer David Park said the service had filled long term vacant ophthalmology posts, including recruiting a Global Citizen post, a Glaucoma Clinical Fellow and a Macular Speciality doctor. The service, he said, was now in a position to “reinstate activity in peripheral sites that was withdrawn or reduced” and patients enduring lengthy waits for cataract operations would be “prioritised”.

However, he also said that “due to the equipment or ophthalmic trained skills that are required for safety reasons” the service was not yet in a position to deliver sight-saving eye injection clinics on Skye for patients with Wet Macular Degeneration.

But Mrs Grant said she optimistic of light coming down the tunnel.

“The door isn’t closed”, she said.

“It just needs pushed a little bit harder”.

She continued: “My letter from Mr Park says the injection clinics were “under review”.

“It says the ophthalmology service could potentially seek funding to support an additional Nurse Injector whose base would be Raigmore Hospital in Inverness but they would have peripheral activity factored into their rota which would enable a local injection service to be delivered. This would avoid the need for patients to travel all the way to Inverness for those injections.

“I have written back to Mr Park to say I would be very keen to help the service push for this funding. I hope his reply will set out how we can perhaps join forces to secure this service for Skye.”

 

Highlands and Islands Labour MSPs, David Stewart and Rhoda Grant, are backing calls for improved end-of-life and palliative care as new research shows that by 2040, 95% of people who die in Scotland may need additional support in their care.

Charity Marie Curie Scotland says another 60,000 people are projected to be dying with a terminal condition by 2040 – with an increase in people dying in the community rather than hospital – and has urged end of life care to be made a priority for the Scottish Government with a new national strategy.  This is being backed by Scottish Labour.

Mr Stewart and Mrs Grant have previously called for end of life care to be at the top of the political agenda as home care services for the dying in Scotland are patchy at best. Around 10,295 people die in the Highlands and Islands each year and of these 7,720 have palliative care need. Marie Curie, in an opinion poll of Scots, highlighted that 61% would prefer to die at home.

Mr Stewart, who is also Labour’s Shadow Public Health Minister, held his cross-party member’s debate on the ‘Right to Full Care to Die at Home’ in the Scottish Parliament last year.

The debate was prompted by a plea from Shetland GP Susan Bowie that there should be an automatic right for people to have full care at home day or night for their last few days of life, so that then can have their wish fulfilled by being able to die at home with suitable palliative care.

Mr Stewart stressed that parents currently have the right to have their child born at home and the national health service provides midwives, but we do not have the right to carers to enable us to die at home.

“A new national strategy is desperately needed,” said Mr Stewart.

“What we have learnt from the pandemic is that end-of-life care is extremely important to families and carers as they struggle with lockdown restrictions and limits to hospital and care home visiting.

“It would be a huge relief to many GPs across Scotland that when someone says they want to die at home they know for sure they can get the compassionate care to back up the palliative care that is provided.”

Mrs Grant added: “A national strategy will help ensure that those living with and dying from terminal illness will get the support they need to live as comfortably as they can with the time they have left.

“It is not so much about dying at home it is more about living at home. When days are few they are precious. There is a greater need to live them to the full, to savour and appreciate things around you. That is much better to do at home than in an institution.”

Dr Bowie said: “I am incredibly grateful to the Scottish Parliament for discussing this, and for the cross-party support. Indeed, when days are few they are precious.

“As a Highlands and Islands GP I want to be able to care for my patients at home in their last few days. But that doesn’t always happen as my patient may have wished, because we don’t have the necessary care at home, or nurses.

“At the moment we can be born at home, even though we can’t decide that. Our parents can, and the midwives have to help, as it’s the law. You have a right to have a baby at home, no matter the risk, and the state must provide a midwife.

“But there are no such rights for death.

“There is much talk about people having the choice to die at home, in palliative care strategies, both national and local. However, when it comes to death 60% of folk in Scotland want to be able to die in their own beds, with their loved ones in attendance.

“If, however, home care or district nurses decide they don’t have the means to support it, it forces people ‘at the last’ to be taken off to care centres or hospitals against their wishes, if the relatives are unable to manage entirely on their own.

“Sometimes relatives caring for a dying person at home just need a few nights help to care, or even just a few hours, or just help with the dignity of personal care. Help to make their loved one comfortable. Homecare don’t have to provide that help. It’s up to the Integration Joint Boards, and whilst they don’t have to provide, then many won’t. It’s all wrong and the only way we can sort this is legislation, so that councils and Health Boards will make it happen.”

https://www.mariecurie.org.uk/media/press-releases/end-of-life-care-must-be-a-priority-for-incoming-scottish-government/288561

Highlands and Islands Labour MSP, Rhoda Grant, has appealed to the First Minister to put help in place for marine tourism businesses who have received no financial assistance to mitigate the effects of the ongoing Covid-19 restrictions.

During First Minister’s Questions yesterday, Mrs Grant said “The First Minister is aware that businesses have received lifeline assistance based on their rateable value.

“However there are maritime businesses that do not have rateable values, but do have berthing dues and rental payments, commitments on a similar scale to their land based equivalent.

“They have received no help. They may qualify for discretionary local authority funding but this is inadequate to meet the charges they face and tiny in comparison with land based businesses. 

“Will she look at this again and provide support that will keep them in business?”

The First Minister responded to Mrs Grant that she would ask the Finance Minister, Kate Forbes, to look into it.

Commenting afterwards Rhoda Grant said “I have contacted the Finance Minister about this previously and I have put questions directly to the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Economy and Tourism, Fergus Ewing, and to the Deputy First Minister, John Swinney.

“To date, it’s fallen on deaf ears and they don’t appear to have grasped the difficulty being experienced by marine tourism businesses. The marine based businesses who have contacted me do not have a rateable value as their businesses are based on boats rather than in bricks and mortar. Most of the funding on offer however, is based on the rateable value of the business and so excludes these businesses from applying.”

Mrs Grant concluded “These businesses are facing the same real financial difficulties as land based businesses and are crying out for help. I am however, on the back of the First Minister’s response to my question today, contacting the Finance Minister again, to urge her to put help in place for these businesses now.

“They have been left in the lurch for months and I hope the First Minister’s intervention will now mean that these business owners can receive the help they so desperately need to continue to operate.”