Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon claims she can't interfere with the health board decision to move the 30-bed specialist unit to a new private build facility at Blawarthill.

Furious Milngavie Labour MSP Des McNulty has hit out at her failure to intervene — or even meet with a cross-party group of MSPs.

Jackson Carlaw for the Conservatives, Ross Finnie for the LibDems and Gil Paterson SNP all hoped to join with Des in a meeting with the health secretary to outline the concerns raised by the hundreds of people who attended a recent save St Margaret's public meeting which Ms Sturgeon failed to attend.

However last week when called in Scottish Government to get together with them, Ms Sturgeon said she could see no purpose in a meeting.

Mr McNulty said: "Nicola Sturgeon established a precedent for intervention with health boards when she over-ruled them on hospital closures in Lanarkshire and Ayrshire.

"She even laid down criteria about when she would intervene — when there was evidence of substantial public opposition to the decision, when the decision would not be in the best interests of patients and where the proposal for service change was based on flawed evidence.

"All of these conditions apply to the proposal to remove continuing care beds from St Margaret's Hospice and transfer them to them to Blawarthill.

"As the Minister to whom health boards are accountable, Nicola Sturgeon cannot escape being held directly responsible if the future of the hospice continues to be placed at risk.

"In St Margaret's we have an outstanding facility which takes care of people in the final weeks of life and provides much needed support to the families and friends of the terminally ill. Patients in the continuing care beds require this support just as much as patients in the palliative care ward; it is end of life care."

While saying Ms Sturgeon's refusal to meet with MSPs on a cross-party basis is extremely discourteous, Mr McNulty welcomed the fact that a meeting has now been put in place between the health board and the hospice for Wednesday, June 11, and hopes the outcome will be that the "disastrous" proposal can be dropped.