Chronic pain patients have accused Humza Yousaf of enlisting paid Facebook users for a controversial consultation to downplay demands for better treatment.
It comes after a government-commissioned study failed to ask even one of the Scottish Parliament’s cross-party chronic pain group to contribute.
Instead, they used a private firm to find volunteers on social media who were paid £200 to take part.
The study concluded that just 37 per cent of people who said they had chronic pain believed it had a high impact on their lives, with 63 per cent saying it had low or no impact.
Members of the Holyrood group believe the Chronic Pain Lived Experience Panel report – compiled when Yousaf was health secretary – was designed by officials to support a government policy of “self management” rather than investing in specialist clinics and treatment.
Sufferer Ian Semmons said: “This was clearly an exercise in promoting government policy through a ‘consultation’ designed to return answers the Government wanted to hear rather than what it needed to hear. It is a huge waste of money that could actually have been spent on delivering treatment for patients.”
Former MSP Dorothy-Grace Elder, secretary of the Chronic Pain group, said: “It is insulting to suggest only 37 per cent of patients believe their chronic pain has a high impact on their lives and that 19 per cent don’t believe it has any impact on their lives at all.”
In a letter leaked to the Sunday Mail, a Scottish Government official admitted paid volunteers were used. It stated: “In summer 2022 we commissioned the social research company The Lines Between to recruit and engage a diverse cross-section of people with chronic pain across Scotland.
"Recruitment of the panel was undertaken by The Lines Between and their recruitment partner Taylor McKenzie who, as part of their recruitment activity, also advertised the opportunity to participate on their Facebook page.”
The letter goes on to detail that participants were paid £200 in total for four panel engagements.
Almost 200 people died in Scotland in the last five years while waiting to be treated.
Scottish Labour’s Monica Lennon, convener of the Chronic Pain group at Holyrood, said: “There must be genuine engagement with patients rather than ministers only listening to things they want to hear.”
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