Sturgeon and Dugdale clash over motor nuerone disease support

By The Press Association15th January 2016News ScotlandMidwifery, MotorNeurone Disease, News Scotland, Nursing / Midwifery

The First Minister has been accused of reneging on a promise she gave to a dying campaigner to double the number of specialist support nurses.

Nicola Sturgeon had pledged the increase in nurses caring for motor neurone disease (MND) patients when she met MND sufferer Gordon Aikman last year.

Labour leader Kezia Dugdale challenged her on the promise as the pair clashed over social care at First Minister’s Question’s at Holyrood.

Ms Sturgeon insisted it was not fair to accuse the Scottish Government of not meeting the commitment, stressing the funding for the nurses was being provided and health boards are in the process of recruiting them.

“The delays are to do with difficulties in recruitment and getting the right people with the right skills into post,” the SNP leader said.

Mr Aikman, a former Labour Party worker, has campaigned for more support to be made available to MND patients after being diagnosed with the terminal condition in 2014.

Ms Dugdale (pictured) said: “At the age of just 29, Gordon Aikman was diagnosed with motor neurone disease.

“After years as a healthy, athletic young man, he is now in a wheelchair and relies upon visits from care workers three times a day. He is dying.

“I was in the room with the First Minister when she met with Gordon and promised to look at the lack of MND nurses in Scotland.

“I listened very closely last January when she announced plans to double the number of specialist MND nurses in Scotland. But we now know that promise, that pledge, has not been met.”

She added that “Nicola Sturgeon has not met the promise she made directly to Gordon” as she called on the First Minister to give a precise date for when the commitment would be met.

Mr Sturgeon stressed her admiration for Mr Aikman for ” the way he has confronted the dreadful diagnosis he was faced with and the way he has conducted his campaign”.

She told MSPs: “I continue to be very determined to work with him and others to make sure we work with him and others to fulfil our obligation to improve health care, and indeed social care for people not just with MND but with other devastating illnesses of this type.

” I genuinely don’t think it’s fair of Kezia Dugdale to say we are not fulfilling the commitment that we gave to Gordon Aikman.

“The funding is being provided and health boards are in the process of recruiting additional nurse specialists.”

The recruitment process is continuing, she said, adding that “in the next few weeks” she expected health boards to meet this.

Ms Sturgeon said: “The commitment, of course, was to double them but also to make sure that MND nurses were funded by the National Health Service and these are commitments I remain absolutely committed to.”

The clashes took place a day after Mr Aikman published data obtained under Freedom of Information (FoI) showing 276 sick and disabled Scots died last year while waiting for care packages to start.

Ms Dugdale said: “It is a scandal that it took a dying man to put in an FoI request to expose the scale of the social-care crisis in this country.”

She questioned how Scottish Government plans to cut £500 million from local government budgets would help councils improve social care.

When Ms Sturgeon told her £250 million was being transferred from the health service budget to authorities, the Labour leader said this was “classic sleight of hand of the SNP government’s style”.

Ms Dugdale also highlighted problems recruiting social-care workers, saying: ” Paying a living wage would fix that and it would improve the care that people receive.”

The Labour leader told Ms Sturgeon: ” Before Christmas the SNP government voted against Labour’s plans for a living wage for care workers, but she could reverse that today, she could make a pledge to the 39,000 care workers who would be guaranteed a living wage for the first time.

“She could make a pledge to the thousands of people, to the 270 people who died last year waiting for the support they need. Will the First Minister guarantee today that she will introduce a living wage for care workers?”

Ms Dugdale added: “The problem with council cuts isn’t going away, the social care crisis isn’t going away.

“Despite all the waffle from the First Minister, people are dying waiting for support. Is that really the Scotland the First Minister wants to live in?”

Ms Sturgeon told her the “reduction in local government budget proposed for the next financial year amounts to 2% of their total revenue expenditure and that is before we take account of the additional £250 million for social care”.

She said: “Of course, that £250 million for social care is on top of the £500 million we are already investing over three years to support the integration of health and social care.”

The First Minister also told MSPs: ” This government is investing this year £12.5 million in partnership with local councils as part of a £25 million package to improve wages and conditions in the social-care sector, and we are determined to continue to make progress towards payment of the living wage in the social care sector.

“If Kezia Dugdale wants to go faster on that she is quite entitled to bring forward costed proposals about how we do that in the context of next year’s budget and to say clearly where that money comes from.”

She challenged the Labour leader to set out how her party would pay for such plans, saying: “This is where it gets real for an opposition a matter of weeks away from an election.

“I know Labour don’t think they’ve got any chance of winning the election and they’re still trying to scrabble on to second place over the Tories.

“But they do have a duty to put forward detail. I’ve outlined what our plans are on social care, I’ve outlined how we are going to work towards the living wage in social care. If Labour want to do it faster, they have to tell us how.”