NHS may need to cut all non-urgent care this winter, say unions – The Scotsman

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The health service is in “absolute crisis”, warned Unison, while the Royal College of Nursing said nurses were “crying on a daily basis” and frightened of the winter to come.

It comes as the first soldiers are set to begin driving ambulances this weekend, after a request for help from the Scottish Government.

Several health boards have already cancelled non-urgent surgeries, and in a statement on Friday NHS Grampian said it would be forced to prioritise the most sick children at the Royal Aberdeen Children’s Hospital over the weekend.

“This is the worst it’s ever been in the NHS,” said Willie Duffy, head of health at Unison.

“People are really struggling. They’re working extra shifts, they’re not getting any holidays, they’re having to stay on shift longer. There are real issues just now.”

Mr Duffy said he would write to the Scottish Government next week about the union’s concerns.

“It might be that we’re going to have to stop a lot of the [routine and elective] work that we do,” he said.

“I know that increases waiting times, but we’re struggling just now in terms of emergency stuff.

“They are going to have to really consider that as an option.”

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Scottish Government ministers ‘have not visited’ Edinburgh Airport to discuss Covid recovery – The Scotsman

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No Scottish Government ministers have visited Edinburgh Airport to discuss the impact of the pandemic, its chief executive has said, as he published a report calling for action to assist the industry’s recovery.

Chief executive Gordon Dewar called for government action over issues such as a discrepancy between Covid testing for passengers between Scotland and England, as well as a “meaningful engagement” with the industry, as the airport unveiled a report submitted to the Scottish Government earlier this year.

Mr Dewar said that Skyscanner search data shows airports in the north of England have already seen a surge of interest in bookings since the testing regime was loosened by Westminster – with no similar increase in Scotland.

In The Importance of Aviation to Scotland’s Economic Success, submitted to the government in July, but released publicly for the first time today, Mr Dewar warned the knock-on economic effects from a lack of recovery in the sector could be wide ranging.

He said the airport’s recovery could be delayed by three years if quick action was not taken.

Mr Dewar said the airport had hoped to return to 2019 levels by 2023, but said that without action, it could take until 2026 to return to pre-pandemic levels.

He said: “We’re hoping the government sees sense [about testing]. It doesn’t achieve anything, doing something different and you just get this cross border transfer. Even waiting six or seven days to make up your mind, costs, people are booking now. Days matter in terms of recovery.”

He said no Scottish Government ministers had visited the airport, which is still losing £2 million a month, down from £4m a month at the peak of the pandemic, to discuss the impact of Covid and added he was looking forward to working with Green MSPs in the new coalition government.

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Pensioner dies waiting 40 hours for ambulance after collapsing in Glasgow flat – The Scotsman

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According to a report in the Herald Gerard Brown, 65, was found by family on the floor of his flat in Dumbreck, Glasgow last Monday with injuries to his back and arms from a fall.

Paramedics eventually arrived around 3am on Wednesday, after which time Mr Brown had passed away.

Mr Brown’s son Dylan, told the Herald: “They pronounced that he was only just dead because he still had warmth in his body.

“In this day and age, it should not be happening. I know with Covid people are busy and the NHS is struggling, but that’s unacceptable and we just don’t want it happening to another family.”

Dylan added that his father’s GP had told him “I can assure you that if they’d got to him your Dad would still be here”.

Mr Brown was reportedly a cancer survivor, weighing just six stone, who had a history of alcohol-related health problems.

The GP, Dr O’Neill, was reported as first being made aware of Mr Brown’s situation by his ex-wife on Monday morning, after she called let the practice know the family were waiting for an ambulance.

Dr O’Neill told the Herald: “At 9am on Tuesday we get a phonecall from his ex-wife to say ‘listen, he’s still in the house’. I was like ‘you are kidding me?’.

“I got on the phone to the ambulance service at 9.15am and I said ‘this man is going to be found dead’ – and I used that language, because I knew the situation he was in.

The GP was called by police on Wednesday to inform him of Mr Brown’s death. But he said that the long wait was not an isolated incident.

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The SNP and Alba conferences are over, so what have we learned? – The Scotsman

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Between the virtual SNP conference and that of the new Alba Party in Greenock town hall, the refrain went “anything you can do, I can do better, I can do anything better than you” – with a call and response of “no you can’t, yes I can” coming from Scottish nationalists, once comrades -in-arms, but now locked in a woad-stained battle.

From Keith Brown’s plea to members to “reach out” to No voters to Nicola Sturgeon’s referendum-heavy speech, the SNP conference played many of its greatest indy hits over again. Meanwhile members of the Alba Party congregated for their first conference in Greenock, flocking to the sound of Alex Salmond’s cry for freedom.

The parties may want the same outcome, but their approaches are wildly different. Ms Sturgeon has shifted her stance slightly and is appealing for “co-operation” rather than confrontation with the UK Government in her bid to ensure a second referendum can be held by her promised date of 2023.

She is pinning her hopes on the idea that Boris Johnson will be forced to move his position by the sheer force of democracy and the mandate she says the Scottish people gave her at the May election, when the SNP won a historic fourth term in government.

But there is an undercurrent of a harder-edged challenge from the First Minister.

Work on the “prospectus” or white paper on independence has restarted within the Scottish Government, and she has been clear to state that any vote will be “legal”, which raises the prospect of the whole situation ending up in court – and who knows whether it will be adjudged that such a vote without Westminster approval will indeed be legal.

The Alba Party, however, believe the SNP has been too slow for too long in its demands for independence and called the six years since the referendum “Groundhog Day”.

In his speech, Mr Salmond was scathing, telling delegates: “If you constantly march people up to the top of the hill and then down again, then you end up all singing Rule Britannia.”

Education is too ‘political’ in Scotland, OECD report author warns – The Scotsman

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Speaking at the Scottish Parliament’s education committee on Wednesday, the report’s co-author Dr Beatriz Pont warned Scotland needed to “drop the politics” and focus on policy to move forward.

The authors of the report, published in June, also told MSPs the Scottish National Standardised Assessments (SNSA) were “not the most appropriate system monitoring mechanism” for measuring the success of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE)

The tests, introduced in 2017, led to pupils experiencing high-stakes tests in primary one, four, seven and in S3 in secondary school. They are opposed by all of Scotland’s teaching unions, as well as by parents groups.

The report, Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence Into the Future, recommended scrapping the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) and reforming Education Scotland.

The exams body is to be broken up and replaced, with pupils, parents and teachers to be consulted on changes, while responsibility for school inspections will be split off to a new independent system.

Dr Pont said: “We’re providing recommendations to have to consolidate the structures to make your CfE less political and more policy oriented.

For more education fails, click here: https://www.scotlandmatters.co.uk/education-matters/

Ambitious SNP-Greens target to scrap half of Scotland’s diesel buses by 2023 met with industry scepticism – The Scotsman

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The move will involve the majority of Scotland’s 4,000 buses by the end of 2023, and trains on the Fife Circle and Borders Railway by the following year.

The dates were included in the Scottish Government’s latest annual Programme for Government, which sets out policies for the year ahead.

Most of the greener buses and the ScotRail trains involved are expected to be electric or battery, but it is not clear how much traditional electrification using overhead power lines will be required on the rail routes.

It was also announced that Scotland’s first hydrogen-powered train is due to be carrying passengers by 2025 after a prototype is showcased to coincide with the United Nations Cop26 climate change conference in November and it is trialled on the network in March.

The Scottish Government said it had already launched a “bus decarbonisation taskforce” and the first, £50 million phase of the Scottish Zero Emission Bus Challenge Fund.

However, an industry source expressed concern about the bus target being met and whether sufficient funding would be available.

Revealed: ‘Shocking’ carbon footprint of COP26 venues – The Scotsman

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Two flagship venues hosting the upcoming COP26 climate change summit have received the second lowest possible rating for energy efficiency, with work yet to commence on a raft of legally binding improvements issued by assessors in order to reduce CO2 emissions.

The SEC Armadillo in Glasgow has been graded F by inspectors, who said its owners should consider installing renewable energy sources as well as new insulation and lighting in order to curb its carbon footprint.

The SEC Centre, the sprawling conference venue which will form the epicentre of negotiations, also has an energy performance certificate (EPC) rating of F. Assessors told its owners in 2012 they should consider investigating the use of low and zero carbon technologies.

Nine years on, neither it nor any of the other SEC properties have renewable energy sources installed. Cumulatively, the venues, chosen by the UK government for the summit, along with Glasgow Science Centre, are pumping around 6,659 tonnes of CO2 a year into the atmosphere.

For more news on the environment, click here: https://www.scotlandmatters.co.uk/environment-matters-2/

Letters to the press, 04/09/21: Scottish bigotry, Be Careful, Tess White was right.

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Police Scotland: Why there are concerns that the force is being politicised – The Scotsman

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One hundred days is not enough to save Nicola Sturgeon from failure – The Scotsman

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