Scotland's biggest hospice yesterday began a campaign to stop its local health board from axeing its funds to focus instead on a private healthcare company.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde wants to remove £1.9m funding for St Margaret of Scotland Hospice in Clydebank - that has a ward of 30 beds for patients requiring acute elderly continuing care.

The health board's focus will instead shift to Blawarthill Hospital, in the Scotstounhill area of Glasgow, which is being redeveloped and taken over by the Southern Cross Healthcare Group.

The prospect of a campaign, co-ordinated by a professional public relations company, by Sister Rita and the other nuns who run the hospice poses a formidable threat to the SNP Government, at a time when it could face a Westminster election and has turned against the expansion of the NHS into the private sector.

Alex Salmond was yesterday quizzed at Holyrood by local Labour MSP Des McNulty about the proposed shift of resources from a hospice to a private company, saying St Margaret is left facing "an uncertain future".

The First Minister responded that it is a matter for the health board, adding the SNP wants them to be more accountable to the public.

A health board spokeswoman later explained there are discussions with St Margaret to find new uses for the beds that will no longer be funded for acute elderly continuing care.

She added: "This includes options to use these beds to provide enhanced residential care or social care as there is a shortage of these services in the west of the city." The hospice part of St Margaret, with another 30 beds mostly caring for younger, terminally ill people, is not directly affected by the health board's decision, although the hospice claimed the removal of funding could jeopardise the viability of the £4.3m new building under construction.

Professor Leo Martin, chairman of the hospice's board, said: "We very much regret any decision by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde that would take 30 beds from St Margaret to a privately operated hospital. We are committed to stopping that decision, as I'm certain are the people of Clydebank.

"St Margaret has a long relationship with the health board and we are proud of our record of providing excellent hospital care for the people of Clydebank, Glasgow and the west of Scotland".

Mr Salmond, during Holyrood questions, was also asked by one of his own MSPs about the "woefully short supply" of care for terminally ill people in Scotland.

Kenneth Gibson, MSP for Cunninghame North, blamed "years of neglect and disgracefully low levels of underfunding" by the previous Labour/Liberal Democrat administration.

Mr Salmond said all health boards were being required to review palliative care services. "Key to this will be the mainstreaming of ideas from the voluntary sector, where they are valued by patients and have demonstrated their effectiveness and sustainability," he said.

Quizzed about the "right to die" debate highlighted in the Royal College of Physicians and The Herald this week, he responded: "The parliament's health committee has every right to investigate these matters and I hope they will."