THE QUESTION IS...

...AND WE'D LOVE TO KNOW THE ANSWER

Was Ruth fed duff information by her team and go ahead without checking to see if it was correct?  It happens. You read something somewhere and accept it as fact. Then embarrassingly it turns out to be incorrect, incomplete or a hoax.

It's even happened to Munguin on the odd occasion. But not in parliament.

Or did Ruth know perfectly well that the criticism of the health service that she was making was in fact nothing to do with the Scottish organisation, but in fact, about the English health service...run by her rt hon friend Mr Hunt?

I'm pretty sure that as she was doing it on our pay cheque we probably have a right to know which it is.

Now, in fairness, Ruth never put herself forward as a potential first minister. She didn't reach that high. Amazingly she actually promoted herself as a potential leader of the opposition. And she got the gig.

But presumably the leader of an opposition party somewhere deep down inside has ambition to be the leader of the country?

So, do we want an incompetent for FM, or maybe an out and out fibber?

Neither, you say? 

Thought not.

Oh, and as she was happy enough to make a song and dance about these shortcomings  in parliament, now that she knows that she got the country wrong, will she be having a word with Mr Hunt about what an all-fired mess he's making of a service that many of my friends rely upon, and are being bitterly let down by?

TAKE A LOOK, MR HUNT

RANDOM THOUGHTS

Oh how modest... not a word about your porn?

Just the kind of thing your average politician doesn't want to see.

Dunno whether that's down to the low murder rate,
or the propensity  of the DWP to get it wrong.

In our United Kingdom we seem to celebrate mainly English history.

This is true. 

It's when you have to honour the pigs that it gets really tiresome.

Well, you have to prove to the DWP that you are trying.

Yes, but these things don't make Dave look big
on the international stage.

So, getting it in perspective, it isn't exactly an empire, is it?

If only you were still PM, Mags, we'd be independent.
Or maybe not...

The reality is of course less spectacular.
There are a variety of reasons that operations don't go ahead.
Not least that people pull out at the last minute.
Fail to show for elective surgery.

This is an example of Labour running the health service in Wales.

But we all know that no matter how well they do,
 the press will always conclude that the SNP are bad.

HELLO LABOUR, ANYONE AT HOME?

Jenny Marra, at parliament, swearing something, in a party frock.
She must have been going on somewhere, dancing maybe?
With Harriet, maybe?

Labour’s position on the NHS became even more ridiculous this afternoon.

The party actually voted against a motion welcoming the publication of A&E performance figures which they themselves had been calling for.

Labour voted against a Scottish Government amendment praising the work of NHS staff and welcoming the announcement of the publication of the very performance figures they had been calling for.

This is following their being caught out fiddling NHS figures earlier this week and deleting tweets and a Youtube video – before repeatedly refusing to apologise.

My   granny's cat could have understood the figures.
They simply couldn't have been plainer.

I mean, they did try to fiddle the figures, didn't they?

It couldn't reasonably have been an error.

No one would be too daft to understand the simple layout of the figures.

So they chanced their mitt and tried to make it look as if NHSS staff, and the government, were responsible for operations that were cancelled due to patients changing their minds, or dying, deteriorating or getting better before the operation could take place, or weather conditions being such that the patient couldnt be transferred to a hospital with suitable operating facilities. 

I mean the layout would have seemed simple and obvious to a 5 year old with limited reading skills.

And today, having called for the figures to be released on a regular basis, they then voted against the figures being released on a regular basis. They also voted against praising the hard work of the NHS staff.

I know that the organ grinder isn't in the parliament and it's just his assistant that's running the show, but really... 

Here he is ... outside a hospital that Labour was going to close
And the SNP kept open.
Murphy's Law: If it CAN go wrong, it WILL go wrong

(I'm not sure where Murphy is, but I'd lay a guess on, in a football strip somewhere near a football ground, telling people that it's a scandal that they can't get drunk at the match. Advice to Murphy: Glasgow man doesn't just care about football and getting drunk, you know.)

EASY GUIDE TO TAX AVOIDANCE FOR TORIES AND TO YOUTUBE/TWITTER DELETION FOR JIM MURPHY

Labour can't afford to have a similar flow chart constructed because Ed Balls, unlike Gidiot Osborne, absolutely refuses to allow anyone to do anything on the side, and demands receipts from everyone, unless it's going on his parliamentary expenses... presumably that includes his window cleaner, in which case... who cares?

In other news Jim Murphy has been obliged to delete a Tweet and a Youtube video complaining about the poor performance of the Scottish Health Service, when compared to the English Health Service, after his researchers managed to mix up the figures. 

Instead of apologising to NHS Scotland staff for the lie, as he was rightly asked to by the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Shona Robison, he blamed the mistake on Scottish Ministers. This, of course is Labour's modus operandi. No matter what goes wrong, blame the SNP or the Scottish government, or anyone the hell else, but not themselves.

Let's just remember that the majority of the staff in the health service work bloody hard, and that we would be lost without them. Have a go at Ministers, by all means, if you will, Jim. Take on Shona Robison, she's more than equal to it, but show some respect for the staff working hard on insufficient money to care for the sick.

There is an excellent comment on Jim's faux pas here from Derek Bateman.

What works to address health inequalities?

Continuing Sam's look at health inequality...

In "NHS Health Scotland: Health Inequalities Policy Review" 2013, is a table setting  out  what would work to address health inequalities.

Firstly,dealing with the theories of fundamental causes of health inequalities the interventions proposed are policies that redistribute power, money and resources. Social equity and social justice needs to be prioritised. Examples of effective actions  proposed are: introducing a minimum wage for healthy living; ensuring the welfare system provides enough income for healthy living and reduces stigma for recipients through universal provision in proportion to need.

There should be more progressive individual and corporate taxation and active labour market policies to create good jobs.

There should be the creation of a vibrant democracy, greater and more equitable participation in elections and in decision-making, including on action on health inequalities.

Second,there are changes proposed to the social, economic and physical environment. The interventions suggested are: the use of legislation, regulation, standards, fiscal policy and strucural changes to ensure equity in the environment. Good jobs should be avilable for all and there should be equitable provision of high-quality and accessible education and public services.

The examples of effective actions proposed are wide ranging. They include addressing housing quality standards: neighbourhood standards: air and water standards; food and alcohol standards and restrictions; transport and pedestrians; pricing of harmful commodities, healthy products and essential and prevention services; environmental safety changes; policies for employment; policies for provision of high-quality early childhood education and adult learning and on training and learning; ensuring that public services are provided in proportion to need as part of a universal system.

Third, looking at individuals, the interventions suggested are that there should be equitable experience of socio-economic and wider environmental exposures and equitable experience of public services.

High-risk individuals should be targeted for support; there should be intensive, tailored individual support: there should be a focus on young children and the early years.

Effective actions include; training for the public sector workforce to ensure it is sensitive to all social and cultural groups, to build on the personal assets of service users; linking of services for vulnerable or high-risk individuals, e.g. income maximisation welfare advice linked to healthcare for low-income families.

There should be provision of specialist outreach and targeted services for particularly high-risk individuals such as looked after children and the homeless.

Services should be provided in locations and ways that are likely to reduce inequalities in access.

Addressing inequalities of income, wealth and power will require that Scotland has control of economic and welfare policies. And as McCartney says:

"If health inequalities in Scotland are to be reduced, this will require leadership at all levels to reduce the stark inequalities in the socio-economic circumstances prevalent today."

So what are our politicians doing?

INITIATIVE TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM OF BED BLOCKING

A further £100 million over three years is to be invested in the NHS to help reduce the numbers of people waiting to be discharged from hospital has been announced by Shona Robison. 

The funding will be used to support health boards and local authorities deliver good quality care and support for people at home.

Whatever your politics this is surely a good use of our money. 

When you have to be in hospital, that's where you have to be. I imagine very few people actually enjoy it, but it has to be.

But once you no longer need the hands-on 24-hour care, surely all most people want is to get out and finish your recovery in the comfort of you own home.

It's a win win situation too, because hospital beds are expensive and the fewer that are being used when they need not be, the more we can cut waiting times and improve the service we provide to their occupants. 

"Bed blocking" as it is sometimes called, has been a problem for as long as I can remember. It's good that the government is investing money to tackle it.

ANYTHING YOU CAN DO....

Following on from the Tory's "Road to... (erm, well probably the road to Weimar actually)" fiasco of a poster to kick off their general election campaign, I was saying to a friend this afternoon that I was surprised that it had been selected for use. 

When reviewing this kind of campaign surely one of the first things that the campaign manager would do was ask "What could go wrong?" 

Well, having to admit to not being able to find one road in all of Britain that stretched into a glorious and happy future... or portrayed the concept... seems to me to be something that could be described as "going wrong". Someone was sure to ask..."where is the road?"...and answering ... "it's a composite of various roads" would have been bad enough if they had at least all been in Britain. 

That the road in question was in Germany was nothing short of hilarious mind blowing incompetence.

We reflected that this was not the first time that a recent political campaign had been found rather naive. We'd all be incredulous when Better Together came up with the "cereal" lady.  Did no one stop to wonder how it would play in the 21st century to make a woman look as if she, a mindless adjunct to her husband, was not to worry her pretty little head about politics... but instead to concentrate on the bairns, the cereal, and the nice cup of coffee in the kitchen... 1950s or what?

So this afternoon when we were talking we hadn't seen Labour's first poster of the campaign. 

Now we have. We'll we've seen "Scottish" Labour's poster, despite there being no such party. James Kelly parodies it rather nicely here, and for once the Rev Stuart is left speechless (which we suspect doesn't happen that often).

And so for the second time in a few days we are left wondering why did no one ask... "what could go wrong?"

Really, did no one at Jim's HQ ask why they were spending their limited resources proposing a "policy" (he flattered it) on a service over which they would have no control whatsoever in the parliament into which they were hoping to be elected? 

This is a campaign for a general election in London, Westminster, the UK, call it what you will. The Scottish Health Service is funded and overseen from Holyrood by an entirely separate parliament and government which will be come up for election in 16 months' time. (Heaven help us if it's Jim whose the FM then. He'll be assuming it's being taken care of from London!)

So, for the purpose of this election campaign, the one that is going on here and now, surely the SNP will be making no promises whatsoever about funding nurses in NHS Scotland. Being in government in Scotland they know perfectly well where NHS Scotland is run from.

But even if it were a matter for the UK parliament, it appears to be the most ridiculous statement of intent. What they seem to be promising is that whatever the SNP proposes, they will add 1000 to it.

So, if the SNP, having researched it with NHS Scotland's management, promises the optimum number of nurses, regardless that an extra 1000 would just really be in the way, Labour will supply them anyway.  

I wonder if they intend to spend the entire campaign promising whatever the SNP says, plus 1000.

Schools: (also not under consideration in the UK election)... whatever the SNP say + 1000. Trains (also Holyrood): whatever the SNP promises, + 1000. Nuclear warheads (ah, Westminster): Whatever the SNP promises +1000. Oh, that'll be 1000 exactly then.

It brings back memories of days when my brother and I would argue about something, by proposing, each in his turn, an ever bigger number, until of course one of us remember infinity.. and then we did infinity plus 1!

We were aged 8 and 4 at the time though, so we had an excuse.

Sorry guys... must try to do better than under 10s! 

Serious suggestions:

1) Find out what Westminster is responsible for (you should be good at that, Jim, being as you are supposed to be working there) and propose policies for which that parliament has responsibility. There are plenty, unfortunately.

2) Try to come up with policies which aren't the same as, but bigger than, those of the SNP. It might make people think that you had given it some intellectual consideration, and that's always a reassuring thing for a potential government (flatters them again). 

3) Before you put out your next poster, ask yourself... what will the public be laughing at tonight? If the answer is "us"... ditch it and start again.

THE NHS AFTER A NO VOTE

This is important. 

It's a video of a doctor talking about the NHS in Scotland... and the NHS in England and independence.

Listen carefully to this video. This woman knows what she talking about. She's a breast surgeon. And the picture she paints of the future of the health service in the case of a no, is beyond scary.

If you intend staying here, for heaven's sake vote yes, or hope that you never get sick and you never get old.

Thanks to Cynical Highlander for drawing it to our attention.

THIS IS WHY WE NEED TO CONTROL OUR FINANCES

So, those of us who can be forgiven for thinking that the removal of Lansley from the English health brief last week was the precursor to a U-turn on dismantling the NHS, were wrong.

The man who replaces him has even co-authored a book which says that service is no longer relevant.

It probably isn't to people as rich as Mr Hunt, but what a short memory Mr Cameron must have.

Of course, this, at first glance, has nothing at all to do with us. The NHS in Scotland is a separate institution, working on similar principles, but travelling  in a different direction from its English partner since 2007. It is run at political level by a Cabinet Secretary for Health and Well-Being. Co-incidentally, the holder of that post was also shuffled this week when Nicola Sturgeon was replaced by Alex Neil.

Under devolution, the Health Service in Scotland receives from the central UK pot of taxes, a Barnett formula proportion of the money spent on the English service. (Of course it is part of a block grant which covers all of the devolved departments, and the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Finance makes a decision about how much of that grant is spent on the HNS in Scotland). However, the overall grant would shrink if the English NHS were to be replaced by a private insurance-based scheme.

Thus if a devolved Scotland wished to carry on with no questions medical treatment, free at the point of delivery, there would likely be less money with which to do it.

Devolved we may be, but many a decision taken in by English ministers, even on functions which are devolved, reflects upon our abilities to deliver that service in the way that we would want.

That is why we need control of our own finances. That way we have no multi-millionaire Tories telling us that free treatment is no longer a priority for Scots.

*Click on image to enlarge.

ANOTHER MAJOR LABOUR POLICY RIDICULED

Labour has suffered another blow as it tried, only 10 days from the election, to re-launch its campaign.

Cosla, a one-time bastion of all things Labour, has slammed what might be described as labour’s flagship policy, the moving of social care from local authorities to NHS Scotland.

There is no doubt at all that closer co-operation between the NHS and social work departments all over Scotland is not only desirable but necessary, in order to remove bed-blocking caused by older people who are not sick enough to be in hospital, but too sick to be home alone, or with another elderly person. But surely this can be done without complete reorganisation of thousands of workers and transfer of them and their assets from councils to the NHS.

The disruption to vital services alone would make this a non starter. Losing one set of notes or letting one patient slip through the net would be a disaster for that person and their family, but the hundreds that would likely be mislaid just can’t be countenanced.

Additionally Cosla thinks that the cost of the exercise would be in the region of £300 million, and that is surely simply mad money to be spending at this time.

There must be a way of setting up a system of liaisons for an awful lot less money than that.

Jackie Baillie defends the plan, as you might expect, stating that she wants to remove the 'post code lottery' of the current situation.

But surely the Labour party has been critical of LIT because of the fact that it removes the postcode lottery of local democracy and local council tax. Oh well...

Health Minister Shona Robison said that Cosla were right to be critical of Labour’s plans to create a new and expensive bureaucracy, but added that all parties recognised the need to improve services to meet the challenges of an ageing population and Westminster cuts to Scotland’s budget.

The SNP has set aside £70 million to enable local authorities to work more closely with NHS Scotland. Surely that’s the way forward. £230 million may not sound a lot in government terms but that kind of saving is the reason that John Swinney has been able to take on board cuts in income and yet maintain the standards that we have come to expect.

So yet another Labour policy in the bin, rubbished by experts, just like the knife crime nonsense of a few days ago, when train crash expert, Richard Baker doggedly stuck to his made up figures for the cost of knife crime to Scotland of half a billion pounds, where experts said that £10 million was an exaggerated outside guess, based on the cost to England, with 9+ times the population, being only £3 million.

ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND MOVING IN DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS

There’s a good piece over in the Caledonian Mercury written by Hamish Macdonell highlighting the increasing differences between the fundamental principles of the governments in Scotland and England.

I won’t repeat all the arguments here, but Mr Macdonell makes some good points.

In England the whole basis of public life is being changed by a reforming government. Along with the cuts which we know are coming in October, are complete changes in the way that things will be done. Schools will be free to opt out of council control; people will be able to set up their own schools. Of course most of the money for these schools will still come from the government in some form and therefore the targets are likely to remain and the rush for exam results as opposed to education will be unlikely to disappear. Heath will become more and more a matter for private companies bidding for contracts to treat NHS patients, and a full internal market is the aim.

In Scotland there is no enthusiasm for this level of free market intervention in public services. Unsurprisingly I am in agreement with that. There are some services that can be provided reasonably by private enterprise or left to the charitable sector, but only the ones that people do not absolutely depend upon. Private bus services in my home town, for example, are a complete shambles with the company doing what it wants, cutting services and running others willy nilly with no information available, even to their own staff about what they are doing. But buses, while vitally important to some people, are rarely a matter of life and death. Far from perfect though NHSS is, I know I can get treatment, free, when I need it. On the other hand, for no apparent reason other than the company’s greed, my private dental insurance has doubled over the last 5 years!!

However, the cuts are coming, whether we like it or not. Scotland may run its own affairs in matters of health and education, but it does not run its own budget. It must depend upon the London government for the grant to run these services, and the money given can only be a percentage of what the English spend on their services. And so if there is a 25% cut in the English services because that is the policy of the de facto English government... then the Scottish government will have a corresponding reduction in funds regardless of its policies and its public’s wishes.

Mr Macdonell’s article points out that Labour (as usual) opposes the SNP policies (their default position) but also opposes the cuts in services of the Tory government. (They oppose magnificently and at great length don’t they?)

The Liberals are between a rock and a hard place. They know that by and large Scots are unenthusiastic about the Tory cuts, but they have to do what they are told by London, and now they have ministers in London, so they are saying nothing. Clearly the Tories are behind all the cuts and the privatizations, but they are few and are unlikely to form the next government.

So the SNP has made its position clear, but Labour is just opposed to everything, everywhere, forever, end of story! So if they form the next government in Scotland it’s anyone’s guess what will happen.

It will be interesting to see how this pans out over the next few years, but clearly some new form of devolution and financial agreement will have to be found, so that Scots who didn’t vote for these cuts will have their democratically expressed wishes granted.