*NB: Declaration of interest – a relative of mine works for MS Society Scotland and I also ran the Loch Ness Marathon for them last year*

I was in Inverness this weekend, helping out MS Society Scotland, cheering on those running for the Society this year and generally helping promote the charity and its work. At the same time, the Politics Show was having a discussion about the impending closure of Leuchie House, Scotland’s only respite care centre for those with MS. Naturally, I missed it live (being outside in the rain in Inverness!) but caught it on iPlayer (the discussion is 45 minutes in, and you can see it here).

I have to say, I was a little disappointed by the tone of the debate. I’ve known about the closure plan for a  few months (since it became public knowledge) and I know a fair bit about the process. I also see that Jackie Baillie secured a Members’ Debate on the issue two weeks ago, which gained cross-party support against the decision. It’s not often that I disagree with a unanimous consensus (and how often do we lament politicians for arguing on minute points of disagreement) but I feel in this case this consensus is misplaced – for both general and specific reasons. I’ll deal with the general first.

As Shona Robison pointed out in the closing of the debate, the government cannot override the decision of an independent organisation, be that a charity, as in this case, or a business (as we saw in the case of the Johnnie Walker closure in Ayrshire). This was an internal decision taken by an organisation through a consultation process which included the entire membership of the MS Society UK – and a democratic decision as well (in spite of some of the more hysterical contributions to the debate) which was voted upon and supported at the MS Society’s AGM. The MS Society is a member-led organisation – and the membership, many of whom have MS, voted against keeping Leuchie House open. Yes, there were grass-roots campaigns (as Derek Brownlee pointed out) but policy decisions are not made by campaigners – they are made by members. That may be a harsh fact, but it is the truth.

More specifically, the MS Society is a charity, with a finite budget, dependent on the good will of the public to help raise funds for them. In the times of prosperity, it is all well and good to spend all the money on everything you can. But in times of austerity, such as we face at the moment, that spending cannot be sustained – we only have to look at the government’s cuts to see that. The MS Society Scotland has 10,500 people in Scotland with MS to consider. Their budget is split between research into how MS works and potential cures, treatment for it, and care for those who have what is a cruel, cruel condition. As Simon Gillespie points out in the piece above, only 13% of the MS Society’s members think they would use Leuchie House or a similar respite care centre, and that those who had the highest dependency needs were the lowest percentage of users of Leuchie. So, the Society has actually looked at what has been requested of it – by those who use its services – and adjusted its services accordingly. That to me seems an entirely logical process. Of course you can’t please everyone all of the time – and yes, some of those who suffer the most, who have the highest dependency needs, as Jackie Baillie points out, are those who will lose out from this decision.

The MS Society Scotland is entirely funded by donations. No public money is awarded to them. The money they spend has to be raised by people willing to do amazing things in order to fund the research and support provided by the society in Scotland. It irks me greatly that elected politicians are now attacking a charitable organisation which provides a service to those with the condition – a service which is NOT made available by the NHS.

I know the MS Society has to be a little more circumspect when dealing with MSPs – and more particularly with Jackie Baillie, who as Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary, will potentially be Cabinet Secretary for Health next year. But for me, her objection to the closure of Leuchie – and, indeed, those of all parties – would ring a little less hollow if any of them had made a commitment in their manifesto to fund research into MS or, more particularly in this case, to dedicate some NHS funding to respite care centres like Leuchie. Of course, funding such a respite care centre out of the public purse is unlikely ever to happen, so a charity providing such a service is the only way it could be provided for. This then, makes it much easier for our elected politicians to stand on the sidelines and criticise, even though they probably recognise that the decision was taken out of necessity, difficult and unpopular though it is.