Yesterday under the headline:
‘SNP Government doing ‘far better than Westminster’ on child health’
we read:
‘DOCTORS have praised the Scottish Government for doing “far better than Westminster” on child health policies such as breastfeeding and tackling childhood obesity, but warned that urgent action is still needed in areas such as GP training and reviewing child deaths. A report by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health scored Scotland, England and Wales on their performance against a series of key recommendations a year on from a landmark report by the professional body.’
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15889305.SNP_Government_doing__far_better_than
So that’s good then? Well it was, but only a few lines down we get the chance to click on this:
Read more: Inaugural child health report warns Scotland ‘among worst in Europe’
So, in space of a few lines we have news that the SNP is doing ‘far better than Westminster’ but before we get too cheered up, we are slapped down with the suggestion we’re ‘among worst in Europe.’
But, when you click in the link you don’t get the report. You get another Herald piece from January 2017, with the speech marks suspiciously removed. We then get:
‘Meanwhile infant mortality across the UK is higher than nearly all comparable western European countries including Ireland, Finland and the Czech Republic.’
Sneaky again. Why have we jumped to infant mortality ‘across the UK’ as opposed to in Scotland? Well it’s obvious. See this based on data taken from a BBC website:
‘In the Nordic countries – Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Iceland – the rate of stillbirths and deaths of babies within 28 days is 4.3 per 1 000 live births. This is the lowest in the world. In the USA, it’s about 10. The Scottish figure has now fallen to just 4.72 with the rate for the UK at 5.61.’
Read more at:
I’ll have a look at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and report back later.
Talking-up Scotland 