Milngavie MSP Des McNulty was part of the powerful petitions committee which last week agreed unanimously to write to the cabinet secretary for Health calling for her intervention in the NHS decision to cut £1.2million funding for the long term care ward at the Clydebank hospice.

The committee was considering the petition raised by Milngavie woman Marjorie McCance, which raised over 60,000 signatures in opposition to health board plans which could see services transferred from the hospice to a privately funded facility at nearby Blawarthill Hospital.

Ms Sturgeon visited the hospice earlier this month and at the time hospice chairman Professor Leo Martin said: "We made a logical and reasoned case for the health board's continued funding of the hospice. We hope that Ms Sturgeon will do all in her power to convince the board to reverse this bad decision."

To further this end, Ms Sturgeon is now being asked to meet with representatives of both the health board and the hospice.

Mrs McCance, whose terminally ill mother is cared for at the hospice, was in the gallery to hear the MSPs make the request.

She told the Herald: "It was a very positive meeting, the ministers seemed genuinely interested in intervening in the funding decision and
have Ms Sturgeon take matters forward.

"I want families in the future to benefit from a care level such as my famly has experienced. My mother was given 48 hours to live around this time last year. We got her into St Margaret's and I firmly believe that the very specialised care she has received is the reason we still have her today. She has celebrated a birthday, an anniversay and a Christening — all events we thought she would never see.

"That's the kind of care that will go if the proposals as they stand go ahead."

Of the latest moves, hospice chairman Professor Leo Martin said: "We are encouraged that MSPs have given the case between St Margaret's and the health board such careful consideration.

"We are hopeful that the committee's intervention will help the cabinet secretary find a solution that will persuade the health board to reverse a bad decision that seems to ignore more than 50 years of first class hospice care."

Mr McNulty welcomed the strong ministerial intervention and told the Herald: "I'm pleased that members of the petitions committee have placed the ball firmly in the cabinet secretary's court."

He said the vital services provided by St Margaret's must not be disrupted by a health board decision which makes absolutely no sense.