Spending £35 million over the next five years, NHS Scotland will increase mental health nurse training by 5% in 2017 /2018 alone and by around 800 staff in the five years of extra funding. This news from April 2017, which I’ve only just spotted, comes in the same year that NHS Scotland announced record staffing levels across the system. See:
As always, I feel it’s my role to compare developments in England to compensate for Scotland’s Unionist mainstream media’s neglect of positive news on Scotland. I found this quickly from the Guardian of November 2016:
‘Since Conservatives came to power in 2010, number of specialist nurses has fallen from 45,384 to 38,774. The Royal College of Nursing claims the figures proved ministerial pledges of recent years were not being delivered. The number of mental health nurses working in the NHS has dropped by almost a sixth since the Conservatives came to power in 2010, figures show. The revelation has sparked fresh doubt that government pledges to improve mental health services are being matched by progress at the NHS frontline.’
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/nov/01/number-mental-health-nurses-nhs-drops-sixth-tories
These reports coincide with other worrying indicators of what is happening to mental health provision in England under this government. Readers may remember this highly disturbing piece I wrote only in July this year.
Once more the 1 in 5 Scots who vote Tory can only be evidence of ignorance of reports like the above.
Talking-up Scotland 
Hope they get charged with their treatment , I remember not so long ago NHS England would not treat a Scot !
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John “not so long ago NHS England would not treat a Scot”. Are you referring to the ex soldier who couldn’t get treatment a few months back. I’ve had treatment in England after an accident, no charge, no problems, many years ago.
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I had treatment in Grimsby (yes, some parts are!) a couple of years ago. Paramedics, ambulance, A&E and X-ray, all free.
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With regard to the 20% Tory vote in Scotland: the majority of these voters actually know information like that which you have provided. As my long time friend, from Govan, recently retired from a very senior diplomatic post in the EU said, “they don’t give a shit.” They will take the free service such as prescriptions, eye tests, screening, GP consultations, but they will also use their private health insurance, usually provided by their company or own business, to jump the queue. If the NHS goes the way it is in England, they will still have their free PHI. A few of ‘The Angels in Marble’, I.e. eejits who vote against their own class interests, will suffer, but the Tories won’t care.
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Sad but true
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