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I want to be clear. Are you recommending that we close the petition? The issues are sufficiently important that we would very much encourage the petitioner, Katrina Clark, to contribute to that inquiry, which will no doubt encompass related issues when it is convened in due course. Is that correct?

PE1894, which was lodged by Kenneth Robertson, is on permitting a medical certificate of cause of death—or MCCD—to be independently reviewed. The petition was last considered in November 2021, when we agreed to write to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and Healthcare Improvement Scotland for their views.

The petition calls on the Scottish Government to change the Certification of Death (Scotland) Act 2011 to permit an MCCD to be independently reviewed by a medical reviewer from the death certification review service, where the case has already been reviewed by the procurator fiscal but not by a medical professional expert. The Scottish Government’s submission highlights that

“DCRS ... checks the accuracy of approximately 12% of all Medical Certificates of Cause of Death in Scotland”

and also

“carries out Interested Person Reviews in cases where questions or concerns about”

certificates

“remain after an individual has spoken to the certifying doctor”.

The Government suggests:

“Given that COPFS is independent and has the responsibility to investigate these cases, it would not be appropriate for”

the death certification review service

“to review”

medical certificates of cause of death

“in cases already investigated by COPFS.”

In its submission to the committee, Healthcare Improvement Scotland provides further information about the work of the review service, including as part of that its inquiries service to support certifying doctors. It also notes:

“Since the service was established in 2015, the monthly median percentage of cases ... where the certifying doctor has made a clinical or administrative error ... has reduced from 44% to 24.4%.”

The submission also sets out the circumstances in which a referral might be made to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service.

The Lord Advocate states in her submission that, in establishing what should be stated on a medical certificate of cause of death,

“the Procurator Fiscal may seek an independent medical opinion, for example from a pathologist for their view on the appropriate MCCD or whether anything would be gained from conducting a post mortem examination.”

She also suggests that

“it would not be appropriate for DCRS to review MCCS in cases already investigated by Procurators Fiscal.”

In light of the submissions that we have received, I would welcome comments from colleagues.

No other member has indicated that they wish to come in. I thank Mr Robertson for lodging the petition, which raises an important matter. However, given the responses that we have received from the Scottish Government and the various legal bodies, I seek committee members’ support for Mr Stewart’s recommendation that we close the petition. Do members agree to do so?

Members indicated agreement.

No other member has indicated that they wish to comment—unless Mr Sweeney is indicating that he would like to come in.

It was just a loose hand—rather than a family pet or anything—that caught my attention.

We thank Mr Wright for his petition, which we intend to keep open. We will write to the various Government bodies and organisations that Ruth Maguire identified. Does the committee agree to our following that process?

Members indicated agreement.

I think that we will be seeing Rhoda Grant again later, so I look forward to that.

Good morning, and welcome to the first meeting in 2022 of the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee. We are operating in a virtual format this morning, with members participating remotely.

Before we start, I have the pleasure of welcoming Ruth Maguire not only as a new member of the committee but back to Parliament. We are all delighted to have Ruth back with us at Holyrood.

Before I ask her to declare her interests—such as they may be—I also thank and pay tribute to Bill Kidd. We veterans must stick together. I have been working with Bill for many years, during the time that I have been a member of the Parliament, and I very much valued his contribution, sound judgment and advice during the months that he served with us on this committee. I know that he will be serving Parliament in some other capacity, and I wish him well in that. I thank him very much for the job that he did with us over the past year.

The first item on our agenda is to welcome Ruth Maguire and for her to establish for the record whether she wishes to declare any interests.

Our third continued petition is PE1873, on providing hypnotherapy for the treatment of mental health conditions, psychosomatic disorders and chronic pain. It was lodged by Graeme Harvey and last considered in September. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to instruct the national health service to provide hypnotherapy for the treatment of certain conditions. The Scottish Parliament information centre has produced a summary of the available research on hypnotherapy conducted in other countries. It concludes that irritable bowel syndrome appears to be the condition with the most research on the efficacy of hypnotherapy and that evidence for its efficacy in other conditions is more mixed.

Submissions from the leads of clinical health psychology, NHS Orkney and North Ayrshire health and social care partnership highlighted a lack of available evidence on the merits of hypnotherapy. The petitioner’s recent submission reiterates the point that hypnosis in various forms has been in use for thousands of years. He also highlights the point that mindfulness and meditation are not new practices and have always been a part of hypnotherapy treatments.

I should say that I am a former convener of the cross-party group on chronic pain, which has considered the issues.

I take note of that. We may well come back to it.

Like you, I wore a school uniform—more than half a century ago now. I do not know whether it fell out of fashion, but my own experience was that there was an active facilitation of second-hand school uniforms at that time. In fact, there were even retail outlets that organised the sale and receipt of second-hand uniforms. You are absolutely right—very often, there is still a long shelf life left in a school uniform item, as it has only become available because the young person has grown out of it very quickly.

In the first instance, Mr Torrance recommends that we keep the petition open and that we write to the various agencies as he described. We will then hear what they have to say and consider the petition again on receipt of their submissions. Do members agree?

Members indicated agreement.

Thank you.

I thank Rhoda Grant for joining us and for her contribution. As she will have heard, we will keep PE1916 open for the time being and see what response we get. I understand that there are considerable issues, and she highlighted the considerable costs that have been associated with simply trying to make do in relation to the existing facility.

I thank everybody for their forbearance with the remote format and for their contributions, and I look forward to future meetings.

Having said that, I gather that David Torrance wishes to contribute further on the points that we have been discussing.