@Alison the answer is no as far as we are aware! It is non medical people on the board who are making these decisions… the ones who hold the purse strings.
I went through a similar situation myself when Marc was trying to get a pump. The one and only consultant in our area (Glasgow) said no, he said ‘not now not ever’ actually. He hadn’t seen Marc in almost 2 years when he made that decision. So I wanted a second opinion. I had a terrible fight for it, the health board said we could get an opinion by any consultant in Glasgow, but what was the point when not one other knew anything about pumps and had never prescribed one or even have a patient on one! Eventually with the help of my MSP we got out of area to a consultant who has a good number of her patients on pumps and was at least qualified to give an informed opinion on whither she felt Marc was suitable for a pump not. Getting her positive opinion didn’t actually get us anywhere as our health board would not take the opinion of another consultant in to consideration…. but that’s another story! We did eventually get a pump though as you know, really thanks to INPUT and some luck!
Anyway, back to pumps in Scotland. We do need to find out who exactly is making these decisions… it seems very strange when some of Glasgow’s HCP’s collaborated in writing SIGN guidelines! Thanks for raising that point.