Allan Petrie Response- Independence for Scotland Party

Dear Linda,

Thank you for writing to me and more importantly, for everything you have done over the past four years.

I am going to be completely honest with you because what you have described deserves honesty, not soft or careful words.

What has happened to your service and to the children and families who depended on it, is nothing short of a national disgrace.

For four years, the system leaned on you, an unpaid volunteer, to do the job it is legally and morally meant to provide, you raised concerns, you highlighted the risks, you demonstrated real, measurable outcomes and still, they allowed it to collapse without putting anything in its place, that is not just failure, it’s a dereliction of duty.

I feel this deeply because I am not speaking as someone looking in from the outside. I have been a kinship carer for my granddaughter, who has exceptional complex medical needs, for over 16 years. I live this system every day, I have fought it, challenged it and stood alongside families who are pushed to breaking point while the establishment hide behind process, budgets and put policy above the law.

I also advocate for families across Scotland with exceptional complex medical needs and I can tell you this with absolute certainty, what you are describing is not unique, it is happening across the country because the system is fundamentally built the wrong way round, we do not have a care system built around needs, we have a system that forces needs to fit pre-set budgets, that is where the harm begins, and one of the main reasons I decided to stand for parliament, if they will not change the system voluntarily then I will force them from within their own system.

I am also campaigning for a complete reset through a “Stage Not Age” model of health and social care, because the system gets worse when children transition to adult services.

Children with complex needs do not suddenly become “less in need” because they reach a certain birthday, their conditions do not change but the support available to them does, that cliff edge at 16 or 18 is not just wrong, it is dangerous.

Under a Stage Not Age system, support would be based on the individual’s needs across their entire life, not their age. That includes, where required, lifelong foster care and lifelong support frameworks for those who will never be able to live independently but deserve stability, dignity and continuity of care. No more gaps, no more hand-offs, no more families left to pick up the pieces.

On CAMHS, I share your frustration and your anger, blocking referrals for young children is indefensible, delayed intervention is not a neutral decision as it causes real, long-term harm.

My proposals are practical and immediate, we must remove arbitrary barriers to access, including age-based restrictions on referrals, we must also restructure how CAMHS operates. At present, highly trained specialists are tied up conducting routine six-month and twelve-month reviews while children wait far too long for an initial assessment.

Those routine reviews can and should be carried out by properly trained community health teams, that would free up CAMHS specialists to focus on first-time assessments, significantly reducing waiting times and ensuring children receive support when it matters most, at the earliest stage.

However, this is about more than CAMHS alone, your service proved that early intervention works, you delivered outcomes that the system itself could not match and you did so with almost no resources, instead of supporting and scaling that success, the system allowed it to fall away, that should shame those responsible.

In terms of immediate action, I will push for emergency bridging funding for proven community-led services like yours, it is unacceptable to remove support without putting anything in its place.

I will also advocate for ring-fenced funding for early intervention and neurodevelopmental services, ensuring that resources follow need and are tied to real, measurable outcomes, not just policy commitments, I will also call for all policies being developed to include input and membership of policy committees to include those with the life experience who the services are meant to help.

Transparency is essential. I will push for the publication of clear, localised data on referrals, waiting times, outcomes and spending, so families can see exactly what is being delivered in practice.

I also commit to meeting directly with you and the families you support, lived experience must be at the heart of decision-making, not ignored by it. The fact that so many senior figures were invited to engage and did not attend speaks volumes about the disconnect that currently exists.

On the reliance on unpaid labour, I agree with you completely, essential services should never depend on the goodwill of exhausted parent carers. I will press for clear policy to ensure that statutory responsibilities cannot be informally transferred onto volunteers without proper funding, structure and accountability.

Finally, I support your call for an independent inquiry as it is something I have also been calling for, when a system knowingly relies on a single unpaid individual to meet its obligations, that is not just poor delivery, it is a failure of leadership and accountability that must be examined.

Linda, what you built should have been recognised, supported and developed into a model of best practice, instead, it was left to carry on alone until it could no longer continue.

Families are not asking for the impossible, they are asking for support that exists, when it is needed, without having to fight for it at every step, you should never have been placed in this position and the families you support deserve far better.

I would welcome the opportunity to meet with you and stand alongside you in taking this forward, this cannot continue and I will do everything I can to ensure it does not.

Yours sincerely,

Allan Petrie
Independence for Scotland Party Candidate
North East Scotland Region