People living with motor neurone disease are waiting for more than a year to get adaptations to their home, MSPs have been told.

Bob Doris, Maryhill and Springburn SNP MSP, led a debate in Holyrood this week on housing conditions for people with MND to coincide with motor neurone disease global awareness day and to highlight the difficulties families were facing.

He told how in some cases the wait for work to be done is longer than the life expectancy after diagnosis with MND.

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The MSP told how the charity MND Scotland uncovered the scale of the problem of long waits for essential equipment like ramps or a wetroom for people.

It included 11% of people saying they waited more than a year for a wetroom.

Doris said: “For some, the wait is longer than the time they have left. We should let that sink in. We must do better.”

He said the average waiting time for wetrooms to be fitted in 2020-2021 was 158 days.

One local authority reported an 80.7-day average, while another reported a 256-day average.

For ramps to make homes accessible there was also long delays.

There is an average waiting time of 149 days.

However, Doris told the Scottish Parliament the MND report notes that “one local authority said that they had an average waiting time of just 23 days, while another local authority had an average waiting time of 475 days".

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He said: “Again, the regional variations are stark. It cannot be right for people to face a wait of 15-and-a-half months to have a ramp installed when the average prognosis for someone who is living with MND following diagnosis is just 18 months.”

Doris told of people’s experiences of coping with MND.

He said: “Marie told MND Scotland ‘my husband lived in the living room with no shower facilities at all. We were washing him out on the decking with buckets of water. No dignity in that whatsoever’”.

Shona Robison, minister for social justice, housing and local government, said: “We know that the best way to resolve the disconnect between adaptations and timing is to ensure that housing, health and social care services are working together to streamline and accelerate the adaptations system.

"Embedding the person at the centre of that is essential, and it will be essential for the new national care service as it goes forward.”