Well-skelped spokesperson?

Inevitably, smaller countries find themselves sending a small number of specialist cases to neighbouring large countries which have the critical mass to justify employing medics capable of treating rare conditions. I feel sure that such a relationship will exist between Denmark and Germany, Belgium and France or New Zealand and Australia.

Scotland had been sending an increasing number to NHS England up to 2014/15 but the figure has been lower, for three years since.

Miles Briggs (Lothian) (SCAUP): asked about this in Holyrood yesterday and the data below was offered:

https://www.parliament.scot/S5ChamberOffice/WA20190820.pdf

In 2018, NHS Scotland conducted an estimated 17 million GP consultations, carried out four million outpatient appointments and responded to 764,201 emergencies. (7)

https://www.audit-scotland.gov.uk/uploads/docs/report/2018/nr_181025_nhs_overview.pdf

 

So, those 6 595 who went to England for treatment amounted to 0.03% of the total.

The Transient Transylvanian Tattie-pickers Doowop Duo at the Fringe

Mysteriously, Alex Cole-Hamilton (SCOLIBDEM) asked the Scottish Government, on Monday, what proof of residency in Scotland is required when applying for the free bus pass offered to ‘older people.’ Who is he calling ‘old?’ I got the bus pass at 60 but took till 63 to get professorised!

The answer was:

Michael Matheson: Anyone applying for a National Entitlement Card (NEC) is required to provide original documentation to confirm their residency in Scotland and verify their personal details. This includes name, address, date of birth and proof of entitlement. A list of the acceptable proofs to confirm residency entitlement can be found on the NEC website – https://www.entitlementcard.org.uk/how-get-your-nec

What are they up to? The Lib Dems want free-movement, don’t they? Are they hoping to expose SNP ‘hypocrisy’ when 60-year-old transient Transylvanian tattie-pickers in Ayrshire have to pay bus fares?

 

A more attractive proposition as leader?

From YouGov based on fieldwork on 13-14 August with 140 Scots adults (18 plus?):

• Con 20%
• Lab 11%
• LD 13%
• SNP 47%
• Brexit 8%
• Green 2%

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/g82fatejnj/TheTimes_190814_VI_Trackers_w.pdf

Is the miserable performance of the Greens a case for a Wings Party?

In their previous poll for 5-6 August which had an almost identical result (no more than 1% up or down for any party) at the UK level, we saw for Scotland:

• Con 23%
• Lab 12%
• LD 14%
• SNP 39%
• Brexit 3%
• Green 8%

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/8i9x45cenq/TheTimes_190806_VI_Trackers_w.pdf

The Lib Dem figure in both polls suggests they are going nowhere with no Swinson Swing in sight. Notably, Lib Dem support falls consistently as you travel North in the UK from 28% in London to 14% in the North of England to 13% in Scotland. Despite this they may well retain their 3 or 4 seats in their clusters, like cancers around a power plant, in the North and East.

Crime

As before, perception of crime as an important issue, reflecting the actual levels, is much lower in Scotland:

• London 37%
• Rest of South            29%
• Midlands/Wales 35%
• North 36%
• Scotland 17%

 

It’s all about choices. I won’t repeat how and why it happened but BBC Scotland ‘news’ this morning gave us a bitter headline opener with two very negative stories about life in Scotland and that kind of thing must wear some of us down.

So, to keep your mental state in balance, TuS can remind you of another report on the same broad topic.

BBC Report 1:

‘The Scottish criminal justice process often leaves those who’ve reported sexual assaults marginalised and feeling let down according to a report just published.’

TuS News Balancer 1:

The conviction rate for sexual assaults is an objective indicator of how well a criminal justice system is treating victims so:

Scotland’s rape CONVICTION rate is 13 times higher than in London

I haven’t seen this reported anywhere.

BBC Report 2:

‘Scotland’s Chief inspector of Prisons says she’s very concerned that the number of inmates is starting to exceed capacity.’

TuS ‘Antacid’ Balancer 2:

I may overbalance your system here but there are so many positive reports on Scotland’s prison service, all missed by BBC Scotland, that I can’t make an easy editorial judgment, so:

SHOCK: Lib Dems or Tories devastated that NO ONE (0, FA) escaped from Scottish prisons!

Have Scottish Lib Dems drawn another blank as they reveal ‘astonishing’ fall in prison staff assaults?

Have Scottish Lib Dems been disappointed to find Scottish Prison Staff are NOT doing a Damien Greene?

Drone activity in Scottish prisons plummets!

Scotland’s Police and Prison staffing at MUCH higher level than in England

Suicide rate in Scottish prisons lower than in much of Europe

Bad news for Lib Dems as all of Scottish prisons revealed to have complete health teams

England’s prison officers and mental health nurses, the ‘canaries’ first to show effects of poisonous Tory policies? ‘Not on our watch’ in Scotland

Why are prison officers staying in post in Scotland as they flee the tide of violence and self-harm in England and Wales?

As England’s prisons sink into crisis, Scotland’s prisons benefit from a ‘consistent government’ with ‘political guts’ 

You can bet that last one didn’t make the news as the Chief Executive of Scotland’s Prisons said in 2017:

‘Compare that [England] fairly, and I think evidentially, with what’s happening in Scotland, and I think what we’ve benefitted from here…has been a consistent form of government. Some may disagree with that view, but I’ve been running the SPS for approaching six years now and no doubt, I have benefitted from a consistent requirement presentation from the Scottish Government in terms of what prisons should be doing, and that relationship, therefore, builds up over time.…I think we’ve had consistency and clarity of expectation. I think related to that has been, therefore, a consistent approach to the funding.’

https://www.holyrood.com/articles/inside-politics/what-are-we-doing-right-scottish-prisons-isnt-working-england

In an official report today:

Anne Longfield, the Children’s Commissioner for England, has published new research which shines a light on the thousands of children growing up in homeless families. The report, “Bleak houses: Tackling the crisis of family homelessness in England”, reveals the terrible reality of how some children are living in converted shipping containers and office blocks, and B&Bs, in cramped conditions, often miles away from their schools. The report shows that while official statistics show 124,000 children in England living in temporary accommodation, this does not include the hidden homeless who are ‘sofa-surfing’, often in very cramped conditions. New analysis conducted for the Children’s Commissioner for England estimates that in 2016/17 there were 92,000 children living in sofa-surfing families.

https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/2019/08/21/thousands-of-children-growing-up-in-shipping-containers-office-blocks-and-bbs/

No doubt a similar reservation on the official statistics might apply in Scotland but using them for like-for-like comparison, the Scottish rate of child homelessness looks to be just over half per  head of population of that in England

The number of children in temporary accommodation increased by 180 children (3%), to 6,795 compared with the same date one year ago.

https://www.gov.scot/publications/homelessness-scotland-2018-2019/

 

 

Performance improving in 9 out of 11 criteria

Main points:

• 57% of patients were in theatre within 24 hours of hospital admission. Which is an increase from 55% in previous year.
• The number of people being seen by a physiotherapist within two days of surgery continues to improve, from 91% in 2017 to 94% in 2018.
• The length of time people spend in a hospital continues to fall. Decreasing from 22 days in 2012 to 17 days in 2018.

https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Scottish-Healthcare-Audits/Publications/2019-08-20/2019-08-20-SHFA-Summary.pdf

Longer stays in hospital after hip surgery are likely to result in a greater risk of ‘early mortality.’

https://www.bmj.com/content/351/bmj.h6246

From BBC Wales yesterday:

A family claim the Welsh Government is “playing with people’s lives” after axing ambulance waiting time targets to reach suspected stroke victims. Mair Gore’s family said she was told to wait two-and-a-half hours for an ambulance after having a stroke in her home – and claim she waited five hours before getting the drugs she needed. They now want ambulance response targets for strokes to be reinstated. Strokes are in the amber category of the ambulance 999 traffic light priority list – and emergency response time targets were scrapped for all but the life-threatening red category cases in 2015.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-49396498

In England the target time is still in place but is 180 minutes! In Scotland, the targets are broken down and considerably more likely to save lives:

http://www.scottishambulance.com/userfiles/file/TheService/Publications/University%20of%20Stirling%20-%20NCRM%20Evaluation%20Report.pdf

Stroke-related deaths have been falling consistently, 12% in 9 years, despite soaring by more than 600% in demand, under the SNP administration of the NHS:

https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Stroke/Publications/2019-01-29/2019-01-29-Stroke-Summary.pdf

 

 

I’ve just discovered the Electoral Commission does do something useful, with its database of donations to, amongst others, politicians. Who should I find there with his snout in the trough?

In 2018 ‘Liberal Democrat’ fibster Alistair Carmichael had a jolly to Kuwait which, according to Human Rights Watch, uses its security laws to stifle free speech and which denies migrant workers legal protections exposing them to abuse.

https://www.hrw.org/middle-east/n-africa/kuwait

Alistair Carmichael MP

£3,800.00 Visit

Kuwait National Assembly

Accepted on 06/11/2018

Reported on 29/11/2018

https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/who-we-are-and-what-we-do/financial-reporting/donations-and-loans/view-donations-and-loans/donations-and-loans-regulated-individuals

Sounds like a nice hotel.

Then in 2019, Carmichael visited Japan. See this on Japan’s brutal and dishonest death penalty arrangments:

Amnesty International argues that the Japanese justice system tends to place great reliance on confessions, even ones obtained under duress. According to a 2005 Amnesty International report: Most have been sentenced to death on the basis of confessions extracted under duress. The potential for miscarriages of justice is built into the system: confessions are typically extracted while suspects are held in daiyo kangoku, or “substitute prisons”, for interrogation before they are charged. In practice these are police cells, where detainees can be held for up to 23 days after arrest, with no state-funded legal representation. They are typically interrogated for 12 hours a day: no lawyers can be present, no recordings are made, and they are put under constant pressure to confess. Once convicted, it is very difficult to obtain a re-trial and prisoners can remain under sentence of death for many years.

Urgent Action in Focus, August 2005″. Amnesty International. Archived from the original on 24 May 2006. Retrieved 28 May 2006.

Alistair Carmichael MP

£1,985.31 Visit

2019 jolly

Open Society Foundation

Accepted on 28/02/2019

Reported on 08/04/2019 

Japan

Invited by the Japanese Federal Bar Association (JFBA) and to meet with government ministers, officials and MPs to discuss the abolition of the death penalty. Contribution towards flights, accommodation, sustenance and incidental expenses, total value £1,900.

https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/who-we-are-and-what-we-do/financial-reporting/donations-and-loans/view-donations-and-loans/donations-and-loans-regulated-individuals

 

https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/who-we-are-and-what-we-do/financial-reporting/donations-and-loans/view-donations-and-loans/donations-and-loans-regulated-individuals

Thoughts, financially-savvy readers? Appreciate I might be missing something simple and honest?

Note: Any excuse to use that photo.

Reading seven lines down through their own report we find:

‘The value of fraud cases has fallen compared to the same period last year.’

The actual figure is £1.2 million in total fraud. Thirteen lines further down we see:

‘Across the UK, more than £319m of alleged fraud was alleged in cases in the courts in the first half of 2019, down from £345m in the same period last year.’

£1.2 million is only 0.37% of £319 million.

‘Total UK fraud?’