Salmond faces derision over independence referendum

lex Salmond was subjected to opposition derision today after bowing to parliamentary pressure and shelving his referendum plans – at least as far as the Scottish Parliament is concerned.
The First Minister has decided not to table a bill on a referendum on independence at Holyrood before the next election after all, despite his repeated promises [...]

Why a loose SNP-Labour pact might not be such a bad idea after all

very now and then, a story appears which makes everyone sit up and take notice: not because it is true but because it seems so utterly unbelievable that everybody starts rubbishing it.
That happened with the Scotsman splash two days ago suggesting that a senior SNP figure had been fishing for a possible SNP-Labour coalition after [...]

Power of partnership in government’s primary care plan

For most people in Scotland, the vast majority of contact with health services takes place well away from hospitals.
According to the health secretary, Nicola Sturgeon, over 90 per cent of patient contact takes place in the GP surgery, community pharmacy, at the dentist and in other settings which make up primary care.
That’s why, Ms Sturgeon [...]

Analysis: the splits between Scotland and England show

One hundred days. That is all it has taken to re-shape politics in Britain. Not only do we have a Liberal Democrat in (temporary) charge of Number Ten but something more fundamental has happened too.
After just 100 days of this coalition government, Scotland and England are diverging once again. The administrations in Edinburgh and London [...]

Patients wrongly admitted to hospitals to dodge waiting times targets – report

Doctors’ leaders have described as “scandalous” reports that patients are sometimes admitted to hospital inappropriately to avoid breaching A&E waiting times.
According to an Audit Scotland report, published today, hospital emergency departments are under pressure to deliver on the four-hour waiting target, and staff question its sustainability, particularly in winter, when it is often missed.
“Over 55 [...]

Lib-Dems preparing for government – again?

YOU would have thought the election had already been held, what with the machinations and the plotting which is taking place at Holyrood. But, it is the summer recess, I suppose, so the army of researchers, aides, spin doctors and the like have to have something to talk about.
The current favourite is the likely outcome [...]

Do England’s health reforms matter in Scotland?

This afternoon, Andrew Lansley, the UK health secretary, is due to publish a white paper describing how he wants to shake up the NHS in England.
But do the plans – expected to include proposals to devolve billions of pounds to consortia of GPs – have any relevance for Scotland?
At first glance, the answer looks like [...]

NHS boards must save £250m in 2010-11

ursing leaders have compiled a guide – open to the public – which shows how much money each health board needs to save to break even in the current financial year. The RCN Scotland’s Frontline First website, due to go live today, also shows how many posts are set to be lost in NHS boards, [...]

Redundancy pledge paints Sturgeon into a corner

arlier this month Nicola Sturgeon took the extraordinary step of writing to every one of the Scottish health service’s 170,000 employees to tell them their jobs were safe.
This is what the Health Secretary told them: “There will be no compulsory redundancies in the NHS. In other words, none of you will ‘lose’ your job. That [...]

‘Doctor banks’ could be used to reform locum system

model currently used for temporary nurses could soon be applied to the use of locum doctors in Scotland’s hospitals, the health secretary has revealed.
“Doctor banks” could be formed to help the NHS fill medical staffing gaps without spending as much money as it does at present, Nicola Sturgeon said, and could also improve quality.
Ms [...]

Opinion: Drinking a toast on the grave of minimum alcohol pricing

By James Browne
I read with interest that the NHS in Scotland spends £200 per head more than in England.
Am I alone in thinking that, if that extra money was given to us as individuals, we could better spend it on beer, fags and pies?
I for one certainly need a massive, publicly-funded binge need to blot [...]

‘We need to stop unsustainable cost-cutting measures in NHS’

Theresa Fyffe, director of RCN Scotland, sets out what she wants from the new “scrutiny group” which will review proposed job cuts in the NHS – and says the government must act on any problems it identifies.
After weeks of speculation and leaks we finally have the workforce projections for every health board in Scotland. And [...]

Sketch: Floccinaucinihilipilification follies

Last week, I began this sketch with a complaint about having to listen to porkies in Parliament. By a curious, almost cosmically mystical coincidence, it was also one of those rare occasions in which I thought Labour leader Elmer Fudd had made a good point. Oh, I should have known better. Silly, silly, silly me. [...]

Thousands of jobs to go in Scottish NHS cuts

The Scottish Government has bowed to opposition pressure to publish workforce projections for the NHS in Scotland.
Publication is surrounded by huge caveats – the introduction explicitly says it has been done “in response to the Opposition Parliamentary Motion on the NHS” and warns that the information is not “quality assured”.
The main findings are an estimated [...]

Opposing views on obesity timebomb from opposite sides of the world

debate has broken out between experts on the opposite sides of the world over how to tackle the modern plague of obesity.
Writing in the British Medical Journal today, doctors in Australia and London argue about whether physical activity or medical treatment is the best approach to addressing the obesity time-bomb.
The debate comes in the [...]

GPs call for link between surveys and income to be broken

P leaders have called on the Scottish Government to scrap the link between public surveys of how easy it is to get appointments and the amount of money that practices receive.
Figures published today from the Scottish Patient Experience Survey 2010 show that patients think that access to their GP has shown a significant improvement since [...]

My guarantee: No forced redundancies in the NHS

Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s Health Secretary, admits there are big challenges ahead – but Labour predictions of thousands of job cuts are way off the mark
There has been a lot of misleading information bandied around over the past few days regarding Scotland’s health boards.
Labour has claimed that over 5,000 doctors, nurses, midwives and cleaners will lose [...]

Will NHS cuts mean efficiency or poorer services?

ack in January, Nicola Sturgeon told The Caledonian Mercury that budget cuts could be good for health services because they help to drive reform.
I wonder if she’s thinking that today.
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has confirmed that it plans to axe more than 1,200 jobs in the next 18 months; doubtless it won’t be alone [...]

Scottish NHS goes back to Hippocratic basics

he health service in Scotland will be expected to go back to basics – millennia-old ones at that – in implementing the quality strategy which is published today.
The long-awaited plan aims to shift the emphasis from things like waiting times to people’s actual experience of the NHS and, in doing so, to “give people a [...]

Why Westminster election will hit Scottish health

n the doorstep, candidates and campaigners have been reporting that health, and health services, have been one of the issues most often raised by voters.
But given that it’s a subject area almost entirely devolved to Holyrood, should health in Scotland be a big issue in the Westminster elections?
Yes it should, and it would be naive [...]

Election briefing: Spiralling into the unknown

By John Knox
If you are flying into a Black Hole, the least you can do is check out the pilots. There is not a lot else you can do. There are no star charts, no-one has been there before, no-one quite knows what forces will be at work.
Our Black Hole is turning out to be [...]

Sketch: Except for viewers in Scotland…

ore news from St Elsewhere as, once again, Holyrood became a haven from politics. Politics, you will understand, is something that now happens on television. That’s where we hear the debates (Unionist v Unionist v Unionist), witness the gaffes and – based on choice of tie and cut of jib – decide which leader looks [...]

Nicola Sturgeon on the SNP’s TV debates fight

Nicola Sturgeon
Depute Leader of the SNP
The Court of Session in Edinburgh has witnessed many important legal contests over the decades – but when it comes to questions of basic fairness and democracy then few are as simple as the case I plan to lodge there this morning.
I will be presenting the formal legal papers outlining [...]

SNP raises £50k in 48 hours for leaders’ debate court case

NP leaders will start their court action against the BBC tomorrow morning after receiving the £50,000 they needed from party supporters to cover the costs of the legal case.
The Nationalists are protesting at the BBC’s decision to bar them from any part of the leaders’ debate on Thursday night.
They appealed to SNP members on Saturday [...]

From flying to flu, it’s a risky old world

Funny thing, risk. Now the airports are open, how many people due to fly are feeling just a twinge of worry that maybe the ash cloud isn’t at the “safe” levels the authorities now say it is?
Yet how many of these same travellers hop in their cars to get to the airport without a concern [...]

Nominations open for controversial health board elections

Nominations have opened for the “other” elections coming up in Scotland – this time, to pick people who will sit on their local health boards.
Unlike the Westminster poll, 16 and 17-year-olds will get their chance to have their say in deciding who should represent them in the newly constituted bodies.
Nicola Sturgeon, the health secretary, was [...]

Sketch: lava actually

t last, it was time for the big televised debate between the main party leaders.
That’s right. First Minister’s Questions.
After an Easter break, the weekly roister-doistering got off to its usual formulaic start with Labour leader Elmer Fudd, born Iain John Bull Gray, asking First Minister Eck Salmond, born Dolores Braveheart Blenkinsop, about his engagements for [...]

Big fall in rate of hospital infections

Rates of healthcare associated infections (HAIs) in Scotland’s hospitals have fallen significantly, but more needs to be done, according to a report published today.
In its first annual “stocktake” of HAIs, Health Protection Scotland says that “real inroads” are being made, with reductions in both Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) and in MRSA/MSSA.
But it also shows the [...]

Trial scheme gives patients access to doctors’ records

The patient health record has traditionally been closely guarded by GPs, many of whom have resisted attempts to share it even with other parts of the health service.
But a new system, being tested in a Scottish health board area, turns that entirely on its head – not only can patients update their own health information [...]

Sturgeon ‘happy to consider’ presumed consent for organ donation

Doctors’ leaders in Scotland are calling for a change in the law on organ donation, saying it is needed to save lives.
In an article for The Caledonian Mercury, the BMA says that moving to a system of “presumed consent” would increase the number of organs available for transplant and warns that for many people, it [...]

More efficiency would bring 3,700 extra hip and knee ops – auditor

An extra 3,700 procedures like hip and knee replacements could be carried out in Scotland each year if all health boards performed as many as the current average, watchdogs have revealed.
In a study of orthopaedic services, Audit Scotland found a wide variation in productivity levels of different health boards.
Although some of the difference will be [...]

Lancet research adds to pressure for alcohol minimum pricing

Further pressure is mounting on political opponents of the Scottish government’s proposals on minimum pricing for alcohol.
Research published in The Lancet today suggests that increasing alcohol prices could reduce consumption, deaths and costs to the health service. Although the research looks at England, its findings are equally applicable to Scotland.
Meanwhile, the Scottish Parliament’s health committee [...]

Many questions about over-40s health checks

o many questions remain to be answered on the Scottish government’s plans, announced yesterday, for universal health checks for the over-40s.
First of all, who is going to do them? The announcement talks about “face-to-face” checks for all Scots aged 40-74. That’s an awful lot of people and health services are, we’re constantly told, already stretched.
Will [...]

Patients to get guaranteed waiting times

Patients in Scotland would get legally guaranteed waiting times for treatment and a legal right to complain – and help to do so – under legislation published today.
The Patients Rights (Scotland) Bill would set up a Patient Advice and Support Service, staffed by patient rights officers, to help and support patients to make complaints. Patients [...]

Scotland’s junior doctors to get bigger pay rise than English counterparts

cotland’s most junior doctors will get a bigger pay rise than those in England, the Scottish government announced this evening.
Health secretary Nicola Sturgeon said she would be accepting the recommendations from the Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration Body (DDRB) for employed doctors and dentists “in full”.
This means that doctors in their first two years after [...]

Health boards inconsistent over waiting lists – watchdog

Health boards across Scotland are applying differing rules on whether patients are removed from or sent to the bottom of waiting lists, watchdogs have warned.
This means that while patients in one area might be given more chances to accept an appointment which suits them, others might be penalised after refusing a “reasonable offer” – defined [...]

Sketch: Fessing up to messing up

icola Sturgeon apologised yesterday for acting like a lawyer. Arraigned before the notoriously harsh court of public opinion, the health minister decided to break the unofficial politicians’ code of conduct in two ways: she apologised and said she’d got something wrong.
The mob gasped and, unexpectedly, a wave of sympathy flooded towards her as she cried [...]

Sturgeon apologises over support for benefit cheat

NICOLA Sturgeon stunned the Scottish Parliament this afternoon by making a full and frank apology for lobbying a court on behalf of a convicted fraudster, asking him to be spared jail.
The Deputy First Minister caught the Scottish Parliament by surprise by saying “sorry” for the way she dealt with the case of Abdul Rauf, [...]

Nicola Sturgeon and an uncomfortable example from Ireland

NICOLA Sturgeon will make a statement to the Scottish Parliament today explaining her decision to lobby a sheriff on behalf of a convicted fraudster.
She is expected to defend her decision to support Abdul Rauf, who was convicted of defrauding the Department of Work and Pensions of £80,000, and she is also expected to resist any [...]

Sketch: Tasty steaks and rancid carrots: the Parlie session so far

When the school playgrounds fall quiet so, oddly enough, does Parliament. Yup, in line with the children’s holidays, our representatives are on holiday this week, so no sketch on account of there being a lack of sound and fury signifying sod all.
However, I thought I’d take a look at the term so far, spending a [...]

Sketch: Nicola faces enemies at the gate

Well, at least Lunchgate was off the menu, even if we had to put up with a meal being made of the Deputy First Minister writing in support of a fraudster. One Gate closes and another Gate opens.
Fraudgate, or whatever it is, involved Nicola Sturgeon writing a letter on behalf of a constituent recently found [...]

Nicola Sturgeon to make ‘emergency’ statement to parliament

icola Sturgeon is to make a statement to parliament on her decision to lobby for a convicted fraudster, it was announced this afternoon.
The Deputy First Minister, who has been under intense pressure over the letter she wrote to a sheriff on behalf of Abdul Rauf, who has been convicted of benefit fraud, will make a [...]

Independence referendum bill delayed until summer … at the earliest

Alex Salmond announced this morning that his long-awaited Bill on a referendum on Scottish Independence will be delayed again and will not now appear until the summer, at the earliest.
The Bill had been expected to be published on Burns’ Night this year three weeks ago. When it didn’t appear then ministers said they were confident [...]

Nicola Sturgeon and the benefit cheat: how bad is it?

oday will be, without doubt, the toughest day of Nicola Sturgeon’s political career. Her ministerial future is on the line and she has become the sole focus of attention at Holyrood.
At issue is the letter of support Ms Sturgeon wrote to a sheriff lobbying on behalf of a serial benefit fraudster.
The Deputy First Minister wrote [...]

NHS strategy shifts from targets to quality

he Scottish government’s NHS quality strategy, launched yesterday, might turn out to be one of the most significant policy documents from the current administration.
That’s if it works.
The idea is a shift of focus for health providers – and by that I mean people as well as organisations – from the idea that unless you’re breaching [...]

How ‘lunchgate’ became more than a storm in a teacup

lex Salmond and the now infamous lunch auction is the ultimate political “slow burner”.
It started last week with a story in The Herald that left most at Holyrood amused but otherwise nonplussed.
The initial story was simple: the First Minister and Nicola Sturgeon, the Deputy First Minister, had auctioned off lunches with them as hosts to [...]

Swinney and Sturgeon square up in Left-Right split

potentially divisive Right-Left split has appeared within the Scottish Cabinet, with John Swinney, the Finance Secretary, on one side and Nicola Sturgeon, the Deputy First Minister, on the other.
The issue is simple but it is also fundamental to the future direction of the SNP Scottish Government – the use of private companies to provide [...]

Sturgeon: cuts will make NHS better

In the first of a series of interviews with people who have an impact on health and health services in Scotland, Jennifer Trueland talks booze, tears and quality of care with health secretary Nicola Sturgeon.

Cuts will make health boards more efficient
NHS patient experience survey imminent
Sturgeon detects shift in attitudes on alcohol
She cried over hospital [...]

Sketch: A nose by any other name

The last thing you expect at First Minister’s Questions is to be offered a “bouquet of absurdity”. A panoply perhaps. But a bouquet? We smelled a rat.
It was Labour leader Elmer Fudd who introduced a pong into the chamber when he raised a question about – wait for it – “the security of the Queen [...]

Doctors attack plans to cut consultants’ bonus scheme

octors have hit back at plans to review the distinction awards scheme which can add thousands of pounds to the annual remuneration of consultants.
Today’s distinction awards scheme is intended to reward the exceptional and to be key to retaining and motivating Britain’s top clinicians and medical academics.
But it has long been criticised for a lack [...]