There is proof groundbreaking HSCT stem cell treatment for Multiple Sclerosis can transform lives.
Lucy Clarke is the first Scottish patient to have the procedure in 2016 after raising £40,000 to travel to Moscow.
It uses chemotherapy to shut down a patient’s immune system before replenishing it with stem cells from their bone marrow.
There is no cure for MS but in Lucy’s case HSCT has halted its progress and allowed the 44-year-old mum to regain functions she believed were lost forever.
Around 15000 Scots are living with the degenerative disease.
But while 250 English patients have received HSCT on the NHS not a single one in Scotland has.
Mum-of-four Lynda Hogg is so desperate she has been forced to put her house up for sale in a bid to go private at a clinic in Russia.
The Scottish Government has insisted the treatment is available to patients who meet the criteria and plans are being developed to deliver it in hospitals here.
If that is the case why has nobody received it?
Money has more than likely got something to do with it despite the fact HSCT can actually represent a saving in the long run given the high cost of alternative MS drugs.
Whatever the cost it is not fair to deny Scottish patients hope available to those in the rest of the UK.
Nic's Covid lesson
Nicola Sturgeon has led Scotland’s response to the global pandemic. For better or worse, depending on your view, the toughest decisions were in her hands.
Health is fully devolved and the First Minister and her government need to take responsibility for their policies.
From PPE shortages to discharging Covid patients to care homes and failures on track and trace - decisions on all of these life or death issues were taken in Edinburgh not London.
Despite this Sturgeon is insistent a four nations public inquiry into Covid-19 is all that is required rather than a Scotland specific one.
This is perhaps not surprising she might like to avoid the uncomfortable scrutiny a judge led investigation would involve.
The UK inquiry will inevitably focus on Boris Johnson’s failings, of which they are many, rather than those of the SNP leader.
But we made mistakes too and the danger is that if her actions are not properly probed, lessons will never be learned here.
Model daughter
Posh triplet Delphi Primrose has been tipped by Tatler to become Scotland’s next aristocratic supermodel.
She has amassed 7.4million views on TikTok and bagged a contract with leading model agency Storm.
And like her flamboyant dad, the 17-year-old looks as if she will love the limelight.
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