NICOLA Sturgeon has announced that ministers are to develop a national action plan on neurological conditions as it emerged that many patients end up having to be looked after in homes for the elderly, despite being under 65.
The First Minister set out the proposals to address the situation after a report by the charity Sue Ryder Care said people with neurological conditions were being let down and needed specialist care.
The charity surveyed Scotland’s councils and found 86 per cent of people with neurological conditions in residential care were in homes for the elderly. It said one in five of these people were under the age of 65.
The issue was raised by Labour MSP Monica Lennon at yesterday’s First Minister’s Questions, highlighting the report and the case of one of her constituents, Dee McGreevy.
McGreevy, 58, a former nurse, from Bothwell, South Lanarkshire, had been in an elderly person’s care home for two years after suffering from an undiagnosed neurological condition following an operation to remove a tumour.
Her husband Thomas has said his wife’s life is now a “mere existence” and that she had received no specialist care.
Lennon, who represents Central Scotland, told MSPs: “Mr McGreevy’s tenacity in battling for better support for his wife has been incredible, but very little support is available for Dee and others like her.
“Will the First Minister agree to look further into the details of my constituents’ case? Will the Scottish Government be considering the report’s recommendations in full?”
Sturgeon responded: “First, of course the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport will be happy to look at the individual constituency case if Monica Lennon wants to provide the details of it.
“On the report that has been published today, I pay tribute to Sue Ryder, which is a fantastic organisation that is doing very good work.
“The Scottish Government works closely with it and took action based on the priorities that it identified last year to make progress on data and clinical standards.
“The report has made five recommendations and we will take forward work on all of them. It is perhaps most appropriate today to say that we have already started to develop Scotland’s first national action plan on neurological conditions.
“The Minister for Public Health and Sport has made it clear that she wants new standards of care to be developed for people with neurological conditions as part of that work.”
The First Minister went on to say that the Government’s plan to take forward Frank’s Law, which will allow those under 65 with some neurological conditions to access personal care in the way that those over 65 already can, should also allow patients increased support.
The proposed law takes its name from former Dundee United footballer Frank Kopel who was diagnosed with vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s in 2008, aged 59. He was not eligible for free personal care and his family had to pay out about £300 a week on personal care towards the end of his life in 2014.
The new legislation, announced last week by Sturgeon in her programme for government, will extend free personal care to under-65s with degenerative conditions.
Kopel’s wife, Amanda, had been campaigning for a change in the law since 2013. She said the changes would mean the under-65s would no longer have to “jump through hoops” to get personal care if they were suffering from a degenerative condition. She also admitted to shedding “quite a few tears” after hearing the First Minister’s pledge.
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