Talking-up Scotland

(c) heraldscotland.com

Here’s what Kirsty Blackman, SNP deputy leader actually said:

‘I don’t think most folk in their daily lives give two hoots about whether Scotland is a member of the union.’

Here’s the Herald headline today:

‘Voters don’t give “two hoots” about independence, says SNP Westminster deputy Kirsty Blackman’

See what they did there? The headline and the actual statement mean two quite different things. I’m sure she’s correct that most people are not talking about independence everyday as they go about dealing with the many and increasing other concerns we all have under this awful Westminster government. Regardless of that, even I spend lots of time on other matters and don’t debate independence every hour of every day. I’m not sure the choice of ‘two hoots’ was a good one but no doubt it was said quickly in the flow of an interview.

Going back to the Herald headline it implies that all voters don’t give two hoots at all times, about independence, and that’s clearly not true. When actually asked about it, a very large number of Scots do seem to give more than two hoots about the issue. You only have to look at the recent polls. Back in mid-September 2017, Panelbase had support at 43% and Survation had it at 46%. An earlier Panelbase poll had it at only 40% but a new Panelbase poll for Wings over Scotland puts support at 49% for an independent Scotland in the EU.

So close, even before campaigning begins, as new poll puts support for independence at 49%

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15802922.Voters_don_t_give__two_hoots__about_independence__says_SNP_high_flyer/

Now, sometimes, journalists claim lack of responsibility for headlines, but I doubt if Tom Gordon doesn’t get the chance to approve his headline.

Propagandists always have excuses designed to suggest critics are paranoid and don’t understand journalism as if the latter is complex code that ordinary folk wouldn’t get:

‘It would have been too long for a headline with that phrase in.’

‘It was done very quickly at midnight.’

‘It was done by a junior sub-editor.’

‘If you read the whole article, it explains.’

All of the above is, of course, excrement of the male bovine. Many readers only scan headlines. Headlines overpower any subsequent reading.  The Herald has an anti-independence agenda and it shows if you look for it.

How could they? Scotland’s ambulance workers coped with the increased demand on Hogmanay. Don’t they know how much our Unionist media and politicians were praying for a crisis of some kind? A few deaths that could be blamed on late ambulance arrivals would have cheered their ghoulish minds, no end, but it wasn’t to be. All they could do was report grudgingly on the increased demand and ignore the performance of the staff. The Herald and BBC Scotland couldn’t bring themselves to praise the staff and went with these two:

Rise in calls to Scottish Ambulance Service over Hogmanay

Surge in Scottish ambulance calls at new year

The Daily Excess adopted a more creative approach, ignored the ambulance crews, and made up their own wee crisis, with:

‘Four 999 calls a minute: Drunk tank demands in wake of Hogmanay booze-fuelled emergencies’

I’ve dealt with the supposed demand for drunk tanks already at:

As alcohol and icy surfaces increase demand, NHS England considers dangerous ‘drunk tanks’ and sending non-specialist nurses or GPs as first responders. Scottish Ambulance Service stays calm and tweets advice

The Scottish Ambulance Service had clearly checked the weather forecasts and knew ice-free surfaces would prevent any increase they would struggle with.

As for four 999 calls a minute, 1 879 were for ambulances between midnight and seven am, according the Express report. There are 5.3 million people in Scotland and while I know many of them were safe at home or in bed in those hours, we’re talking about 0.035% of the population or, in each hour, around 0.007%, which of course, as we know, our admirable ambulance staff coped with, admirably!

Back on the 5^th December, the Daily Excess headlined:

‘Scottish NHS ‘failed’ by SNP as shortage of doctors and nurses grows’

They went on to make much of the shortage of consultants whose specialisms are so important in extreme cases. To start the new year, we should see more clearly, than they wanted us to see, the somewhat more positive context and trends over 2017 and over the ten-year period of SNP responsibility.

As of September 2017, there were 5 189.8 consultants working in NHS Scotland. Thought there are still 430.5 vacancies still to be filled, the shortage fell in the last quarter by 9.6% and the annual overall number of consultants rose by 3.5%. Vacancy rates for consultants are also down from 8.3% in 2016 to 7.5% in 2017. More strikingly, consultant numbers have risen by 43.1% under the current government! To put that in context, overall NHS Scotland staffing has risen by 25.4% in the ten years of SNP administration.

Also in 2017, the number of specialists in intensive care increased by 27.5% and the number of specialists in acute internal medicine increased by 49.2%!

https://isdscotland.scot.nhs.uk/Health%2DTopics/Workforce/Publications/data-tables2017.asp

https://news.gov.scot/news/latest-nhs-workforce-statistics

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/888554/scottish-NHS-failed-SNP-doctors-nurses-shortage

I agree that the shortages matter but professionalism in journalism requires context to be informative and they do claim to be informing when they’re asked about it. Mostly however, the Daily Express seems more concerned, regardless of the facts, to express the excrement out of us.

(c) exascale.co.uk

I’ve been posting almost entirely good new stories, talking-up Scotland, in an effort to counter the depressing effects of our doom-laden, Unionist media. To finish the year off, here are a some of nearly a thousand of them, to hopefully lighten your heart:

Scotland has higher gross disposable income per head than most UK regions

Scottish graduates more likely to find work or further study than other UK graduates

Unemployment at record low, employment up, economy growing, youth unemployment amongst lowest in Europe, business confidence increasing, oil jobs returning, health indicators improving to world’s best: That’ll be Norway? No? Scotland!? SNP baaaad!

Scotsman headline is untrue: hate offences against Jews in Scotland are extremely rare by contrast with the rest of the UK?

Scottish public sector to put poverty and inequality at heart of decision-making despite UK Government’s abandonment of the principle

Ruth and Kezia sob as they hear Scotland is ranked as the best place in the UK to start a business. Will this good news never end?

Tourism spending in Scotland surges ahead of UK figure

Scotland takes nearly 26% of Syrian refugees settled in UK with only 8% of the UK population

58 000 baby boxes to help increase life chances and now Scotland will be the first country in the world to provide free sanitary products to ‘end period poverty’. This is the kind of country I want to live in.

Scottish Veterinary researchers working to improve the health and productivity of farmed animals in sub-Saharan Africa.

Scotland has the best performing trains AND the lowest prices increases in UK

Institute for Fiscal Studies reveals Scotland to have become more affluent than every other part of the UK bar the South-East of England and that much (most?) of this improvement has come under the SNP

SNP continues to build far more schools than Labour did/could

German Greens and Free Democrats repeat: ‘Door is open to Scotland in EU.’

UN condemns UK Government’s ‘human catastrophe’ on disability rights but praises Scottish Government’s actions

SNP to bring in free personal care for disabled under-65s by April 2019

Scottish teachers report lower job demands, better relationships and lower perceived stress levels than those in England and only 4% are considering leaving their jobs

Homelessness falls in Scotland as it rises in England, mainly driven by heartless Tory welfare reforms

The Auditor General strongly, with no qualifications, commends the Scottish Government on its ‘sound’ management of the economy. The lowest under-spend since devolution.

Scots most ‘digitally savvy’ citizens in the UK?

Scots the least respectful of the upper classes: More evidence of a difference that makes a difference?

Scottish Government meets its youth employment target four years early to place Scotland as among the most successful in Europe

Scotland’s homicide rate falls by 47%, is lower than the rate for England and Wales and has fallen faster than many other countries in the ten years of SNP government

Scottish food and drink exports still booming so is it still only 28% of the UK’s food and drink exports? We’re still only 8% of the population

Racial hate crimes increase by 33% in England & Wales while falling by 10% in Scotland: Who says we’re not different?

Scottish care workers to receive Living Wage for ‘sleepover’ hours while English care workers receive only the National Minimum Wage.

Would Nicola Sturgeon’s fairer and more equal Scotland be a more productive one too?

Despite massive increases in demand, NHS Scotland maintains performance levels extremely close to the most rigorous of targets and patient satisfaction is at an all-time high. Audit Scotland say: ‘There were no significant weaknesses in the overall quality of care being provided.’

8% of the UK population and 28% of living wage employers. More evidence that we are different enough to want to run the whole show?

Despite already having the lowest rate of child poverty in the UK, Scotland will become the first and only part with statutory targets to tackle it

With 1 in 4 living wage employers already in Scotland, the Scottish Government aims to make this a ‘Living Wage Nation’

80% of full-term baby deaths [in England] could be prevented by improving staffing levels. ‘There is not a shortage of midwives in Scotland’ (BBC Scotland)

Extracting the positives for Scottish Government from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation report on Poverty which you are unlikely to hear of elsewhere: Lower poverty, better qualified workers, lower domestic violence, smaller educational gaps and eating just as much fruit!

A good new year to all of you who read, share and comment here. I really value it.

John

30.12.17: 16:25

Here’s what the chairman of the police federation in England said in 2012:

‘To recommend locking people up in so-called ‘drunk tanks’ to resolve the issue of binge drinking is dangerous. People who are very drunk can be vulnerable and often require medical attention, so locking them in a confined space is not an effective solution.’

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/camerons-drunk-tanks-are-dangerous-say-police-6953014.html

This view was echoed in the Independent:

‘However, hospital representatives said these cases often had other serious injuries that needed assessment and no policy should be introduced without an evaluation of the evidence base.’

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/nhs-drunk-tank-new-years-ae-schemes-relieve-pressure-a8132096.html

Having investigated drunk tanks in 2009 and identified the above risks, there are no such tanks in Scotland and the government has said they have no plans to introduce them.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-42506706

Further, there is little evidence that drunks have been responsible for major spikes in attendance. According to the Scotsman:

‘A&E waiting times hit by surge in fall injuries after icy weather.’

https://www.scotsman.com/news/a-e-waiting-times-hit-by-surge-in-fall-injuries-after-icy-weather-1-4648131

So, it was ice on the paths not ‘on the rocks’ that caused increased attendance in December, by as much as 48%, in Inverness and the BMJ has identified, at most, 15% of A&E attendances being down to acute alcohol intoxication.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/nhs-drunk-tank-new-years-ae-schemes-relieve-pressure-a8132096.html

Finally, in another dubious response to increased demand from the elderly, some NHS England areas are planning to make non-specialist nurses and GPs answer 999 calls, ahead of paramedics, to deal with cases such as patients who have fallen in their own homes or residential homes. However, in the Independent, the risks in morphine administration in these contexts are highlighted:

‘Doctors’ groups warn that other parts of the NHS are also at maximum capacity and say suggestion GPs could offer morphine is ‘unsafe’ without proper facilities.’

‘Not all nurses are routinely trained to the levels that paramedics are, but even where nurses are trained experts have warned that morphine should only be administered where there are facilities for ‘continuous observation and respiratory support should it be required’. Because this is unlikely to be available at peoples’ homes, some say safer alternatives should be considered.’

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/nhs-winter-crisis-nurses-gp-999-calls-pensioners-broken-bones-drugs-morphine-fractures-a8134096.html

I can find no sign that NHS Scotland plans any such action. Indeed, the Scottish Ambulance Service seems calm, ready and merely tweeting advice. It won’t be icy tonight so it will be very interesting to see how the A&E figures are compared to the icy week earlier in December.

https://twitter.com/scotambservice?lang=en

(c) thenational.scot

I can’t find overall figures for transfers from English hospitals to Scottish ones but the level of transfers from Oxfordshire to Scotland is a useful comparison. According to Lib Dem health spokesman Alex Cole-Hamilton, via STV, 625 patients were transferred to English hospitals in 2016/2017 and he says:

‘We need to know whether the significant rise in patients being sent outside Scotland is a consequence of SNP ministers’ failures.’

In the same period, in only one English county, Oxfordshire, nearly 500 [mental health] patients had to travel to Scotland for treatment. Some had to make the 532 miles journey to Inverness! Oxfordshire’s population of around 690 000 is around one eighth of Scotland’s. There are roughly ten times as many hospital patients in England as there are in Scotland.

http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/news/15383748.Bed_closures_force_mental_health_patients_to_travel_as_far_as_Scotland_for_treatment/

Also, in the same year, we could read in the Guardian:

‘NHS England sending anorexic patients to Scotland for treatment. Mental health experts voice concern over growing trend and say it could increase vulnerable patients’ chances of dying The NHS in England has far too few beds to cope with rising numbers of eating disorders, doctors say. The NHS in England is sending patients who are seriously ill with eating disorders to Scotland for treatment because chronic bed shortages mean they cannot be cared for in England. Vulnerable patients, mainly teenagers and young adults, are being taken hundreds of miles from their homes in order to receive residential care in Glasgow and near Edinburgh.’

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/dec/11/nhs-england-anorexic-patients-scotland-mental-health

With even more drama, as you might expect from a Daily Mail headline, some English patients are not even waiting for a transfer:

‘Move to Scotland or go blind: English patients are being forced to leave the country to get drugs to treat a rare eye condition.’ 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3174202/Move-Scotland-blind-English-patients-forced-leave-country-drugs-treat-rare-eye-condition.html

Needless to say, there’s none of the above context in the STV piece and as in their piece recently on hospital bed reductions, the opposition politician gets many paragraphs to rant before we get a response from the Scottish Government by which time the headline and the rant has made it unlikely that any reader will be of a mind to adjust their views. Here’s what they are allowed to say in the last two paragraphs:

‘In response to the figures, a Scottish Government spokesman said: “Spending on this very specialist care represents just 0.1% of the record £47.4bn investment in the NHS over the last four years, and a tiny proportion of the total number of procedures carried out in the NHS, which reached a record of one million inpatient procedures, last year. As complexity of healthcare increases and costs rise it is right that very specialised care for procedures such as lung transplants, is occasionally provided at specialist centres outwith Scotland to allow expertise to be concentrated and patients and families to be treated in quality settings.’

https://stv.tv/news/politics/1405062-nhs-scotland-clocks-up-50m-bill-for-patients-treated/

So, once again, pretty shoddy journalism, lacking the kind of balance, context, evidence, and fairness I’d have required of a bare pass for a 1^st Year BA Journalism student, in first semester! Counting the headline, there are 11 short paragraphs/statements critical of the Scottish Government, before the 12^th and 13^th are given to any alternative explanation. I’ve changed my mind. It’s a fail. Come and see me to talk about transferring to Business Studies or Accounting.

That’s let a Tory rant yesterday and let a Lib Dem rant today?

STV falls for Tory misrepresentation of scale and effects of hospital bed reductions as NHS Scotland exceeds NHS England provision by 50%

Finally, as for Alex Cole-Hamilton, see:

Herald Newspaper and STV News fooled by unqualified, inexperienced professor and Lib Dem supporter/MSP’s dad into attacking Scottish schools’ methods

http://www.thenational.scot/news/14896232._LibDem_MSP_must_resign_the_whip___Calls_for_Alex_Cole_Hamilton_to_stand_down_while_expenses_probed/

 

(c) subseaworldnews.com

Already, this year we’ve seen many days when we could be exporting surplus electricity from renewables. See, for example:

Scotland’s wind turbines provide enough energy for 189% of Scottish homes on nearly every day in October. It was much the same in May.

Today, reported in Energy Voice we see:

‘National Grid has confirmed electricity has started to flow through a cable taking renewable energy from Scotland to England and Wales. The cable runs from Hunterston, where a converter station is based, to Flintshire Bridge in Wales. The cables will transfer up to 900MW of power across several hundred kilometres to link the transmission network in Scotland with the one in England and Wales. To enable the link to operate at its full capacity of 2200 MW, further work is required at Hunterston.’

https://www.energyvoice.com/otherenergy/159983/renewable-energy-link-scotland-wales-starts-work/

2 200Mw or 2.2Gw? Small beer! According to the Scottish Government, Current supply (September 2017) is 9.7Gwh and is projected to reach 21.3Gwh before 2020. This suggests oversupply of at least 15Gwh which can be exported.

http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0051/00514475.pdf

Looking further ahead, a fully-sourced Wikipedia account, suggests that Scotland has:

• existing installed capacity of 1.3 Gwh of hydro-electric schemes
• an estimated potential of 36.5 Gwh of wind
• 25% of the estimated total wind power capacity in Europe
• An estimated potential of 7.5 Gwh of tidal power
• 14 GWh of wave power potential, 10% of EU capacity
• Total renewable electricity generating capacity may be 60 Gwh or more

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Scotland

So, with a potential to generate 60 GWh what is our domestic electricity demand? In 2015 it was only 6 Gwh!

http://euanmearns.com/scotland-gagging-on-wind-power/

We could be exporting huge amounts of energy well beyond England and Wales.

(c) petmd.com

Glasgow University researchers have developed a ‘world-first’ in creating new bone growth and saving the leg of what looks like an English Setter. Who says we can be anti-English? The technique prevented amputation of the leg and is to be tested on humans too.

This is only one of many reports of Scottish researchers at the forefront of their fields, which I’ve reported on. See these recent examples:

Scottish research first to identify ways of reducing cattle-fart with view to saving the planet

Scottish Association for Marine Science to lead seaweed research to benefit developing nations

Scottish Veterinary researchers working to improve the health and productivity of farmed animals in sub-Saharan Africa.

Scottish university research to help developing nations remove arsenic from water supplies

Scottish Researchers again!

You can see the story here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-42370415/world-first-for-dog-s-broken-leg

(c) youtube.com

Under the headline:

‘Number of available hospital beds plummets in five years. The Scottish Conservatives say it is easy to see why NHS ‘horror stories’ happen.’

STV went on to allow the ill-informed views of Tory shadow health secretary, Miles Briggs (above), to completely misrepresent the scale and the effects of a small reduction in the number of beds available in Scottish hospitals and dominate the narrative unchallenged. From their report, here are the figures:

‘Statistics released by NHS Scotland’s information services division show the number of beds has declined by 1672 to 21,340, a fall of 7.3%, since 2012-13.’

So, the number of beds has been falling, not really ‘plummeting’, at around 2.4% per year. Several paragraphs later, the Health Secretary was able to offer some context for this, but the headlines and the Tory rant had done their damage by then:

‘We have seen a significant 10% reduction in length of stay in hospital for elective admissions since 2011/12 and there are also signs that the growth in emergency admissions is slowing year on year – which is good for patients.’

https://stv.tv/news/politics/1405055-number-of-nhs-beds-in-scotland-plummets/

So, in a comparable period, the length of stay has been reducing by 10% and the number of beds by 7.3%. This looks like a plan rather than neglect. Indeed, in England, the Kings Fund has reported and explained an even larger fall:

1. The total number of NHS hospital beds in England, including general and acute, mental illness, learning disability, maternity and day-only beds, has more than halved over the past 30 years, from around 299,000 to 142,000, while the number of patients treated has increased significantly.
2. Since 1987/8, the largest percentage reductions in bed numbers have occurred in mental illness and learning disability beds as a result of long-term policies to move these patients out of hospital and provide care in the community.
3. The number of general and acute beds has fallen by 43 per cent since 1987/8, the bulk of this fall due to closures of beds for the long-term care of older people. Medical innovation, including an increase in day-case surgery, has also had an impact by reducing the time that many patients spend in hospital.

https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/publications/nhs-hospital-bed-numbers

In brief, many more patients, especially the elderly and those with mental health problems, are being treated in the community and, logically, funds are being transferred from hospital beds to community care.

Finally, there are:

21 340 beds in Scotland or 1 bed for every 248 people

142 000 beds in England or 1 bed for every 373 people.

That means provision of beds in Scottish hospitals, regardless of the above transfers to community care, remains 50% higher than in England.

The STV report fails on three counts. It allows unsubstantiated rumours from an opposition politician to set the tone and to dominate the influential headline. It does not give sufficient attention to other rational reasons for falling numbers of beds in hospitals. Finally, it does not contextualise the Scottish situation in terms of the dramatically worse one in England.

So it goes?

An alliance between Scotland’s seven cities – Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness, Perth and Stirling – set up to develop a wider economic and environmental strategy will focus on hydrogen-based technologies. Aberdeen already has Europe’s largest fleet of hydrogen-fuelled buses, has plans to extend it and the other cities are expected to follow suit. See:

Europe’s largest fleet of hydrogen-fuelled buses is in Aberdeen

Scotland is, of course, a world-leader in the production of hydrogen from tidal power. See:

MAJOR NEWS: World’s first tidal-powered hydrogen generated in Scotland after £3 million funding from SNP Government

In addition, Aberdeen has already installed the UK’s largest hydrogen cell for its Exhibition and Conference Centre

Europe’s biggest hydrogen-powered bus fleet and now the UK’s biggest hydrogen cell installation are both in Scotland

A fuller account of the Alliance can be found in the Insider online news magazine at:

http://www.insider.co.uk/news/scottish-cities-alliance-smart-cities-11763737

You won’t be surprised to know that I could find nothing on this important and very positive initiative beyond the business magazines, Insider and Energy Voice. Indeed, the only Scottish mainstream media report I could find came in the Herald back in 2014 and was headlined:

‘Scottish Cities Alliance refuses to reveal figures about its investment deals’

http://www.heraldscotland.com/business_hq/13188579.Scottish_Cities_Alliance_refuses_to_reveal_figures_about_its_investment_deals/

Could the negative tone have had something to with the Alliance being ‘a Scottish Government-backed collaboration’? The article gives extended space to grudging and mean, wee Labour and Tory representatives but none to the SNP government.