In December 2018, the average number of beds occupied per day due to delayed discharges fell for the second month in a row.
This has been achieved against a background of a massive increase in demand for inpatient places throughout 2017/18:
http://www.audit-scotland.gov.uk/uploads/docs/report/2018/nr_181025_nhs_overview.pdf
Remember, outpatients do not require beds. It is the nearly 12% increase in demand for beds for inpatients that makes the achievements in reducing bed-blocking so impressive.
Talking-up Scotland 
“Under a lamplight,
Monica stands at midnight,
And every guy think he can buy her love,
But money can’t buy sweet lovin’ from Monica.
Morning to moonshine,
Monica knows every line.
Don’t ever propose, ’cause Monica knows, you know.
She’ll turn up her nose and say what a fool you are”.
Monica.
The Kinks.
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To the tune of which Kinks song? Lovely I’m sure.
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The song is called *Monica* and is from their Village Green Preservation Society album, which is a pretty good concept album.
I first heard it in the late 60’s, through a girlfriend. I liked the Kinks, but only knew their hits, and had moved on myself to underground/progressive music by then. But as with a lot of their stuff, it sticks in your head.
The song sounds lots better than the lyrics suggest
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Thanks haven’t heard that. Like you I’d gone all protocol then. Ray Davies one the songwriters of the time. Especially fond of Better Days.
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Progrock!
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‘Protocol Harum’— ???
Sorry!
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I’ve gone a whiter shade of pale. Get me a salty dog!
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I managed to inflict my recent brain-spew elsewhere (mr bell’s blog, he seems unhappy so much of the time, thought I’d brighten up his life,,, ). BUT you know how much I like to share 😀 !
The subject was unhappiness at, the SNP not doing things the right way, or fast enough and wondering about Progress Scotland (summarising), so very political in nature and nothing to do with the NHS:
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Taking a more nuanced view, I think there is a harder line political balance at play – you remember the fanfare when the SNP received their mandate for calling an independence referendum, except all we’ve had are delays since and tensions rising between the SNP and Westminster ,,, some context here – the first independence referendum was really at the behest of the unionist factions, another of David Cameron’s great ideas really, a great wheeze to see the SNP crushed – but everyone seems to have forgotten this, Alex Salmond was effectively badgered into announcing it. It just didn’t turn out the way they wanted though eh?
Now consider the amount of twaddle the unionists peddled (or did we just become more aware of it?) at that last state-sanctioned referendum, and consider how much effort the state machinery is going to put in this time (they have been ramping up certain narratives for years now, never really stopped did they, and unionist political views have become more entrenched, the extreme effort politicians put in to not work along with the SNP is becoming extreme, etc) if there is no state sanctioning? Theresa May, the Westminster government and the state KNOW that they cannot stop a referendum from happening, or stop it being legitimate, that is why the rhetoric is always ‘now is not the time’ or ‘the people don’t want one’ – it is never ‘no, never’ (again). But they can keep prevaricating and making it awkward, delaying,,, how much of the Brexit delaying tactics are in fact in relation to delaying the inevitable Scottish independence referendum?
So the uk government and the Scottish government are dancing around each other. No one wants to dance to Westminster tune, but there has to be some while in the union. The next thing is the state machinery; we see that there have been numerous breaches of electoral law, and some serious questions to be asked about postal voting (putting aside any conspiracy theories, take the basic fact that dead people don’t normally vote, and that the electoral roll is never going to be up to date enough to account for a percentage of people dying between registration and the vote, then it is possibly impossible to get more than 95% turnout – in one London area the turnout for the postal vote was 99% in the EU referendum. That’s in London, where you’d expect a fair amount of transient population movement. I really would have thought that warranted investigation, but hey, this is a civilised place, couldn’t happen here etc), and if you have read any of the documents leaked from the integrity initiative you can see the techniques used for making any and every message fuzzy (state sanctioned fuzzy). The amount of money and influence the unionists can wield far outstrips any of Yes or SNP funding too.
Next, look at the fact we do not have a variety of political parties supporting independence, the Scottish greens are there for a small section of society, but the SNP are then left trying to appeal to the full range of political ideologies, and are left with few ideologies as a party itself, they have to stay in the middle ground. That’s why we know they won’t survive as an entity once Scotland has achieved full independence, it’s a diverse grouping having to appeal to a diverse set of political opinion. So they are always going to appear flimsier than they are. If Labour had supported independence, I have no doubt the SNP would be more right wing.
So; I understand why the SNP are looking for a solid majority, a democracy we might be, on the surface, but the state machinery working against you could easily swing the vote enough if all you have is a 3% lead. I don’t know by how much you’d need, 10% maybe? The state machinery would be hard pressed to turn that around without being obvious. And it has to be a majority decision, whatever the circumstances of state manipulation. So the people that don’t really care, are more interested in their mortgage or hearing about the royal family than if Scotland should be fiscally autonomous, should be made to care. It is often an emotional vote – sense and facts say that we can function well as an independent country, but people only look at the facts that support their already established world view. Brexit has made more people think, look, listen and consider, so I don’t believe it is a case of ‘because they want to stay in the eu’ that more people are considering independence for the first time, or more sure of their vote now, but that the deadlock of an imagined nirvana that emotionally binds some people has been broken. That is a loss, and people need time to come to terms with it. They need to be convinced that a message of fairness doesn’t involve us all transforming into tree-hugging vegan hippies – it means balance between different ideologies, ideas, political leanings and personal desires, and the freedom to choose these things in our own country ourselves. We don’t have a big enough range of political parties in support of independence to show how everyone will be represented, so it will need to be a belief. Give people a chance. Most of their ‘reasoning’ will be spurious, but it’s what we all do – try and justify our emotional beliefs with what facts or opinions we can find.
We KNOW that all the unionists and naysayers are going to love being in an independent Scotland, and we know they will benefit from it, we just need to keep saying it, repeating it, going on about it. It possibly won’t be nirvana, but it’ll be better than what we’ve got just now. Even with teething trouble and establishing ourselves, much much better than what we have just now. I will be just sighing with relief when we get there.
You have to wonder how much of the idiotic antics of the Scottish Tory MPs are done to emphasise what the Westminster world view likes to put out – that the scots are so moronic they could never run their own affairs? Sell their grannies, so they would.
The Progress Scotland ‘think tank’ – it does seem late in the day to start it up. My suspicious little brain cells are niggling away wondering if this was originally to be an Alex Salmond initiative,,, which had to be delayed due to certain circumstances, then the baton handed to someone else?
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