Talking-up Scotland

© gponline.com

Today on news.gov.scot we read:

‘An additional £71.6 million will be invested in direct support of general practice, helping transform the way services are delivered in the community, Health Secretary Shona Robison has announced. The funds will directly support general practice in 2017/18, by improving recruitment and retention, reducing workload, developing new ways of delivering services and covering pay and expenses.’

The BMA and the RCGP have been campaigning fiercely via the mainstream media for further investment in general practice. The opposition parties have been dishonestly claiming a looming crisis in general practice. I’ll return to the SNP Government investment below but first I want to clarify that general practice in Scotland is already in superior condition to that in the rest of UK, in several ways.

First, Scotland has significantly more GPs per head of population:

Scotland –1 GP to 1083 people.

England – 1 GP to 1338 people.

Wales – 1 GP to 1375 people.

Northern Ireland – 1 GP to 1445 people

http://stv.tv/news/politics/1357142-scotland-has-best-gp-to-patient-ratio-in-uk-statistics-show/

Second, Scottish GPs are the most satisfied with practising medicine:

Scotland – 80%

England – 65%

Wales – 67%

Northern Ireland – 71%

Third, fewer Scottish GPs work excessive hours than those in the rest of the UK (percentages):

England          Scotland         Wales              N Ireland

1-34                 22                    15                    20                    20

35-44               29                    34                    33                    34

44-54               28                    39                    32                    28

50 or over       21                    12                    15                    19

Fourth, Scottish doctors are the least stressed in the UK (percentages)

England          Scotland         Wales              N Ireland

Extremely       19                    7                      18                    15

Very                 43                    25                    37                    27

Somewhat       34                    57                    36                    47

Not too            3                      11                    8                      10

Not at all         1                      0                      1                      0

All of the above come from a rigorous academic study carried out by professional researchers, not interested parties like the BBC, BMA or RCGP, at the Commonwealth Institute (USA): http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/in-the-literature/2015/dec/primary-care-physicians-in-ten-countries

I had to make a special request for the breakdown of the UK figures.

The Commonwealth Institute also identified the NHS across the UK as superior to most other systems across the globe, especially that of Obama’s USA.

Here are the extras planned by the Scottish Government:

‘The funding will be broken down as follows:

• £60 million for direct support of general practice. This includes £20 million towards workforce, £21 million for transformation and clusters and £5.5 million for infrastructure.
• £11.6 million for contract uplift in 2017/18 to cover pay and expenses.

Further details of how the £60 million fund will be invested, announced today, include:

• The GP Recruitment and Retention Fund will increase five-fold – from £1 million in 2016/17 to £5 million in 2017/18, helping fund GP bursaries and expand a scheme to encourage retired GPs to return to practice.
• The amount a practice can claim to help pay for locum cover when a GP is on sick leave will increase to match the level of maternity leave cover.
• A further £200,000 to reimburse the increase in the costs of completing GP appraisals.’

To me this is an impressive package of assistance to an already well-staffed and resourced area of the NHS Scotland.

http://news.gov.scot/news/supporting-general-practice

Collecting data from landline telephone call surveys gives conservative results and underestimates the desire for change. They got the Tory election win wrong, the EU Referendum vote wrong, the Trump win wrong and they will be getting the Scottish Referendum 2 voting trends wrong too.

The last telephone-based survey had the results largely unchanged for 2014 at only 45% for Yes while the more recent BMG online survey took the Yes figure up to 49%. Now an Ipso—MORI poll yesterday, based on 1029 adults (over 16), for the Daily Record, has the Yes vote at 50%. Remember landline polls underestimate the desire for change and overstate the desire for the status quo so it’s probably over 50% for Yes now.

Here’s what YouGov have to say about landline telephone surveys:

‘There’s a big difference between the online and telephone polls on the EU referendum – with online polls showing the sides neck-and neck and telephone polls showing about a 15% gap in favour of ‘remain’. Why? It’s striking that both methodologies right across the different polling companies give about the same number to the ‘leave’ campaign, around 40%. The difference is in the ‘remain’ number, which is around 52% from the telephone polls but only 40% for online polls.’ So, commonly, telephone surveys generate conservative, negative or status quo returns. Respondents are more likely to say no to a question about a big change of some kind……‘Now however we can reveal a real, significant and evidence-based difference between the two methodologies that explains why they are divergent and why it is online that appears to be calling it correctly.’

I’ve already explained more fully why landline-based telephone surveys get it wrong, including a bias against younger and more deprived groups who don’t have landlines, at:

https://thoughtcontrolscotland.com/2017/02/08/why-the-49-supporting-independence-in-todays-bmg-poll-may-be-more-accurate-and-much-more-optimistic-than-other-recent-polls-suggesting-a-wider-gap/

Note the Ipsos MORI headline:

‘Support for independence rises as referendum speculation grows’

 That suggests to me that they think the possibility of a referendum is more popular than has been claimed elsewhere and that support still has scope to rise further. Here’s some more of their report:

‘As the UK government prepares to begin formal negotiations to leave the European Union and the SNP prepares for its forthcoming spring conference, our new poll for STV News shows voters split down the middle in their constitutional preference. Among those who expressed a voting preference and who would be very likely or certain to vote in an immediate referendum, 50% (+2pts) said they would support independence with the other 50% of voters (-2pts) saying they would back Scotland remaining in the UK.’

Finally, the poll shows a 54% majority of men saying ‘Yes’ to independence and a 56% majority of women saying ‘No’. On the one hand, this is remarkable given the disproportionately negative effects of Tory austerity cuts on women but on the other hand we men can perhaps console ourselves that women are less likely than men to actually vote these days:

‘In 1992, more women (78.2 per cent) voted than men (77.2 per cent). But that number has been in decline ever since. In 2005 and 2010 there were more male voters than female. 64 per cent of women voted in the last general election, compared to 67 per cent of men.’

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-politics/11333915/British-women-general-election-voters-shun-the-polling-booths.html

Other sources:

https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3854/Support-for-independence-rises-as-referendum-speculation-grows.aspx

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2016/02/23/commentary-what-explains-difference-between-phone-/https://yougov.co.uk/news/2016/02/23/commentary-what-explains-difference-between-phone-/

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2016/05/20/revealed-evidence-greater-skews-phone-polls/

 

© businessforscotland.com

According to Daily Business on the 8^th March:

‘Scots factories shrug off Brexit to ‘get on with it….. After the initial shock of last year’s Brexit vote, Scottish engineering companies have adopted the usual pragmatic approach and buckled down to getting on with business.’

With particular regard to manufacturing exporters, 30% of businesses have indicated increased activity due in part but not entirely to, weakness in the pound.

The Daily Business piece also reports:

‘Private sector growth picked up in the three months to February, according to the CBI’s latest Growth Indicator. The survey of 778 respondents across the manufacturing, distribution and service sectors showed that growth rose to a balance of +15%, climbing from the balance of +10% in the three months to January.’

http://dailybusinessgroup.co.uk/2017/03/scots-factories-shrug-off-brexit-and-get-on-with-it/

Scottish GDP is growing faster than the UK average and has now reached the same rate.  Noting that much of UK growth is due to population growth with associated costs for the infrastructure and services required for a bigger population whereas Scotland’s is due to increased productivity there is good reason for optimism. Of course, with oil and gas revenue added as the sectors recover, Scottish GDP will soon exceed the UK average.

http://dailybusinessgroup.co.uk/2017/02/scotlands-productivity-grows-four-times-faster-than-uk/

Of course, with oil and gas revenue added as the sectors recover, Scottish GDP will soon far exceed the UK average. See these for evidence:

https://thoughtcontrolscotland.com/2017/02/14/north-sea-oil-and-gas-is-on-the-crest-of-a-third-wave-and-the-snp-government-is-already-supporting-plans-for-it/

https://thoughtcontrolscotland.com/2017/02/26/global-demand-for-oil-could-outdo-the-10-year-average-in-2017-why-the-snp-government-the-sector-and-hedge-funds-are-all-optimistic/

https://thoughtcontrolscotland.com/2017/02/23/hedge-funds-bet-big-on-oil/

https://thoughtcontrolscotland.com/2017/03/03/scottish-oil-getting-back-to-growth-bp-announces-2-new-projects-now-under-construction-and-coming-online-this-year-with-a-further-3-entering-the-final-investment-decision-stage/

© bbc.co.uk

Well we know Tories are sanguine about most things. See these two selections of synonyms from the Merriam-Webster thesaurus:

bloody-minded, homicidal, murdering, murderous,  bloodthirsty;

or:

assured, clear, cocksure, confident;

You’ve only got to look at their history of foreign policy initiatives like bombing Libya or domestic ones like the Bedroom Tax. No, I’m not giving it inverted commas.

For once, we can welcome their sanguinity after a survey of Tory activists led by Professor John Denham, Director of the University of Winchester, Centre for English Identity and Politics, enabled him to feel able to say:

‘Even allowing for the self-selection of respondents to this survey, it is likely to provide a fair reflection of the broad views of Conservative activists. It is striking how few Conservative activists display a whole-hearted commitment to the Union and to the retention of Scotland within it.’

 I think I knew they hated us. I couldn’t be happier. Here are the main conclusions from the survey:

1. ​​​Fewer than a third of Conservative activists believe that the loss of Scotland would cause ‘serious damage’ to the rest of the UK, while over two-thirds would not want Theresa May to offer any new financial or policy powers to the Scottish government in the event of a second referendum.
2. 73% of English Conservative activists believe that the devolution settlement since 1999 has been ‘harmful for England’
3. Nearly a third of English activists would welcome the break-up of the Union as ‘an end to unreasonable demands on England to provide ever greater financial and political concessions to Scotland’: as many as believe the break up would do serious damage
4. 16 per cent of English activists believe the break-up would have no real significance for the rest of the UK, while a further 23 per cent believe any problems could be manageable.
5. ​When asked if the UK Government should offer the Scottish government further financial support, policy powers or involvement in foreign policy in the course of a referendum campaign, 68 per cent of English respondents would rule out any further powers; 28 per cent would support further policy devolution, and less than four per cent would support either further financial support or involvement in foreign policy.

Add the figures from points 1 and 4 and you get a figure of up to 69% who want us out, couldn’t ‘give a’ or think it’d be no hardship for them. Some Tory activists must be the MPs of the future.

http://www.winchester.ac.uk/newsandevents/Pages/Tory-activists-sanguine-about-break-up-of-the-Union-results-of-new-survey.aspx

© scottishhousingnews.com

22 rural households will take part in a pilot project designed to find ways of reducing fuel poverty. The pilot will take 12 months and £300 000 will be invested in it.  Advisers from Home Energy Scotland (HES) will identify strategies for reducing fuel costs in the pilot homes and an independent panel of academic will review the evidence.

Communities, Social Security, and Equalities Secretary, Angela Constance, announced the pilot study while visiting the 100 000^th home to benefit under the existing Home Energy Efficiency Programme since 2013. The gov.scot release, yesterday, concluded with:

‘From 2009 to 2021 the Scottish Government will have allocated more than £1 billion under home energy policies to make homes warmer and cheaper to heat. Around two in five Scottish homes are in the top three energy efficiency rating – up 74% since 2010.’

http://news.gov.scot/news/action-on-fuel-poverty-1

I wonder what the Tories are doing? See this from 2016:

‘George Osborne has overruled energy minister Amber Rudd by vetoing changes to the government’s £320m scheme tackling fuel poverty that would have targeted it better at the neediest families, leaked emails show. Rudd is often regarded as a close ally of the chancellor, but the two clashed during March over changes to the warm home discount (WHD), which is administered by energy providers and provides a £140 rebate to help poorer households pay their bills.’

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/16/chancellor-overruled-amber-rudd-on-changes-to-fuel-poverty-scheme

NHS Scotland care home receives perfect report

I’m sure you all remember, last year, the traumatic images from privatised care homes in England, captured on secret cameras. They turned out to be representative of a wider malaise in English privatised care homes. I’ve listed a few links at the bottom for those who can bear to read them.

So, it’s a blessed relief to read of the Scottish Care Inspectorate’s report of an unannounced or spot check of an NHS home in February 2017 reported in the Press & Journal today.

‘Lochbroom House in Ullapool was highlighted by the Care Inspectorate for consistent provision of high quality care following the unannounced visit last month. A spot check at the 11-bed home resulted in “very good” grade 5s in two categories – quality of care and support and quality of management and leadership…….. It also said that the care home premises are clean and fresh, and that there were good systems in place to check that equipment was in good order…… There were no recommendations or requirements made as a result of the visit.’

The last point is special. Most inspections can find something to suggest that ould be improved.

https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/highlands/1189025/ross-shire-care-home-receives-glowing-report/

This is an NHS care home. You’ll remember the horror stories from private care homes in England last year. If not:

http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/14460971.Scandal_of_the_care_homes_that_do_not_meet_quality_standards/

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/nov/20/neglect-uncovered-care-homes-cornwall-bbc-panorama

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-4011534/Growing-scandal-care-homes-PUNISH-families-dare-complain-exposed-husband-banned-seeing-wife-three-weeks-elderly-mum-evicted.html

http://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/care-homes-under-investigation-after-secret-cameras-watch-nurses/story-29919428-detail/story.html

In January 2017, 91.8% of Scottish A&E patients were seen within four hours. The target, set high intentionally,  is 95%. I’m not watching BBC so have no idea how they’re reporting this. In England’s A&E units, we heard in the Telegraph on the 9^th of February:

‘England’s A&E units suffered the worst performance last month [January 2017] since the target was introduced 13 years ago, document suggests. Provisional data passed to the BBC says a record number of patients spent longer than the target time waiting to be seen in emergency wards during January.’ 

What was the actual figure, I hear you say? Well it was only 82% with more than 60 000 waiting for up to 12 hours.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/09/englands-ae-units-suffered-worst-performance-last-month-since/

Back in Scotland, Health Secretary Shona Robison said:

‘Our core A&Es have consistently out-performed those in England, Wales and Northern Ireland – and have done for the last 22 consecutive months of published statistics. Additionally, performance for the year to January 2017 is the highest since year ending January 2013. But we want to go further and continue to improve performance in Scotland. We are committed to long-term, sustainable change put in place in order to maintain high levels of performance during peaks and troughs of activity. We have put record investment and increased levels of staffing into our hospitals to achieve this – including an extra £3 million for health boards to support preparations over winter.’

Note that ‘over winter phrase’ and remember the Red Cross describing a ‘humanitarian crisis’ in NHS England in the same period…..Theresa?

http://news.gov.scot/news/ae-performance-29

You might like to see that the evidence goes back some way:

Is Scotland’s A&E still the best in the UK, in 2016? Is it still the best in the World as it was in 2015? Did BBC Scotland mention this?

© scottishhousingnews.com

From news.gov.net on 7^th March:

 ‘Staffing in Scotland’s NHS has increased by more than 12,000 – almost 10% – under this Government. Figures published today show that in the last year alone the workforce increased by almost 1,000 whole time equivalent (WTE) to a new record high. At 31 December 2016, 139,262 whole time equivalent (WTE) staff are working in hospitals and community healthcare settings across the country. Nursing is at historically high levels, with 2,926 more WTE nursing and midwifery staff under this Government. The statistics also show record numbers of Allied Health Professions.’

I couldn’t find any NHS England reporting for the same period so must use this from the Guardian in April 2016:

‘NHS [England] has 70,000 fewer staff, new figures reveal. Official numbers of doctors, nurses and midwives were inflated, latest figures show.  The NHS has a chronic shortage of staff, according to new figures’

Not only had the Guardian revealed falling staffing but also a dishonest attempt to cover it up. Coming back to Scotland in 2017, Health Secretary Shona Robison said:

‘Under this Government, NHS staff numbers have risen to record highs – with more consultants, nurses and midwives now delivering care for the people of Scotland. There are now 12,200 more staff working in our NHS, with nearly 1,000 of these recruited in the last year. These extra staff will ensure people all across Scotland get the high-quality NHS services that they rightly expect.’

How do the total figures compare and how do they relate to the population of the two countries? As of 31^st December 2016, there were 139,262 full-time staff members working in NHS Scotland. In NHS England in April 2016, there were 1,014,218. England has almost exactly 10 times the population. So, the English total should be 10 times the Scottish figure or 1.39 million yet it seems to be only 1.01 million*. This quite large discrepancy might explain some of the crises we saw in NHS England over the Xmas/New Year period and didn’t see in Scotland much to the obvious dismay of pundits in the Scottish media. Robison goes on to say:

‘We are also committed to preparing our NHS workforce for the future by increasing student nursing and midwifery intakes for five consecutive years. That’s helped to see almost 10,000 nurses and midwives in training in 2015.’

http://news.gov.scot/news/record-nhs-staffing

The Guardian article in April 2016 included, shockingly this:

‘The NHS, already struggling to meet rising demand with a chronic lack of staff, has 70,000 fewer personnel working for it than ministers have previously believed, new official figures show. Its own data collectors have found that figures produced in December on the number of people staffing frontline services inflated the workforce. That means the NHS had 69,317 fewer staff last September than the 1.1 million* that ministers identified in December, including just over 15,000 fewer nurses, midwives and health visitors and 3,000 fewer doctors.’

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/02/nhs-staffing-crisis-70000-go-missing

Yet, Theresa feels able to come up here and lecture the SNP on government competence.

© glasgowclyde.ac.uk

Linkedin sent me this email today. Clearly they haven’t spotted my retirement. I was just about to delete it when I thought ‘700 new jobs in Kilmarnock’, isn’t that good news of the kind we don’t often hear about Killie. I had a quick look and found there were a lot of pretty reasonable jobs in the list.

The employment rate for East Ayrshire is only 68.6% compared with the Scottish rate of 72.9%

Sounds like a strong case for more training opportunities and/or immigration? Hopefully this announcement from the Scottish Government funded, Skills Development Scotland on the 5^th March suggests that the former is being taken seriously.

‘Up to 27,000 young people will benefit from apprenticeship employment opportunities this year thanks to business and industry. The new figure is up on last year’s target of 26,000 apprenticeship starts and is a step towards the Scottish Government’s commitment to 30,000 starts per year by 2020.’

http://www.eastayrshirecommunityplan.org/Performance/EastAyrshirebyNumbers/EconomyandSkills/EmploymentRate-Percentageofworkingagepopulationinemployment.aspx

© bbc.co.uk

From thirdforcenews on 1^st March:

‘Scots charity clears up the deadly legacy of war’

The Halo Trust has cleared up 800 000 mines in Afghanistan saving untold lives and helping communities farm their land again. As well as mapping the location of minefields, and learning to safely remove them, the team are educating locals in how to avoid them and report them for removal if they spot them.

Funded by the UK and other governments the trust has cleared over 114,657 hectares, working continuously despite the different regimes in power in the areas they work. I don’t know about you but they deserve more recognition than people like David Cameron’s PA or his wife’s hairdresser.

A UK minister met the workers to praise their work. That it was ‘International Development Secretary’, Priti Patel, who previously voted to bomb Libya in 2010 and Syria only last December reveals her lack of a sense of irony. Britain last used mines in Iraq in 1991, was a major manufacturer of them until the 1980s and they can still be found in Afghanistan.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12816279

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-34987921

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_report/1997/landmines/36075.stm

http://www.afghan-network.net/Landmines/

http://thirdforcenews.org.uk/images/uploads/articles/319583/32784956820_54804f8be3_k__wide.jpg