By Professor John Robertson OBA
Thanks to MSM Monitor for pointing this out.
From BBC Highlands and Islands yesterday but conspicuously absent from BBC Reporting Scotland or Good Morning Scotland:
Doctors in the Highlands fear increased National Insurance (NI) costs could close some practices, a senior Scottish figure in the British Medical Association (BMA) has said. Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced in her Budget last week payments from employers – including medical practices – would go up next April. Dr Al Miles, deputy chairman of the BMA‘s Scottish GPs committee, said Highland doctors had contacted him worried about thousands of pounds of increased costs.
Serious stuff eh? Makes you wonder why just the Deputy Chair of BMA (Scotland) making this protest.
Back in January 2024, the top man was in the field to fight for Highland and Island GPs with:
The leader of Scotland’s doctors has called for rural GPs to get higher pay and special status to cope with a critical shortfall of medics in the Highlands, islands and rural counties.
As the below chart shows, the level of cover of GPs varies across the UK and across the regions of England. The highest levels are in Scotland (76 GPs per 100,000 population) and the lowest in North West London (54)
Neither Dr Kennedy nor the Guardian writer wished to put their comments into perspective.
Dr Kennedy has not tweeted since early May.
I wonder why he has been so keen to attack the SNP Government yet is so quiet on the Labour Party?
Support Scots Independent, Scotland’s oldest pro-independence newspaper and host of the OBA (Oliver Brown Award) at: https://scotsindependent.scot/FWShop/shop/
The Oliver Brown Award for advancing the cause of Scotland’s self respect, previously awarded to Dr Philippa Whitford, Alex Salmond and Sean Connery: https://scotsindependent.scot/?page_id=116
About Oliver Brown, the first Scottish National Party candidate to save his deposit in a Parliamentary election: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Brown_(Scottish_activis
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
‘Neither Dr Kennedy nor the Guardian writer wished to put their comments into perspective’.
Context and perspective when it comes to matters concerning the Scottish Government/NHS Scotland are no go areas also for BBC Scotland, STV, The Herald, The Scotsman, the Daily Record, even Channel 4 News etc. and that’s before we look at the sources these media outlets rely on in the British Labour Party. the Tories and the Lib Dems in Holyrood. No context, no perspective, endless, repeated negativity and bias by omission – a rich and powerful brew!
Amongst all this, the British Labour Party is well advanced in inserting its attack lines for the 2026 Holyrood election in public consciousness. The SNP Scottish Government’s track record on the NHS will be prominent amongst them: this has been long in development.
Added to the avoidance of comparative analyses of NHS performance across the nations of the UK – too favourable to Scotland – the lines being promoted , with media complicity, are:
Another egregious statement from British Labour Party politician was published in Scotland recently. This is the headline from the Daily Record (October 31, 2024): ‘Rachel Reeves challenges SNP to improve NHS performance in Scotland after £3.4bn boost – the Labour Chancellor claimed NHS performance in Scotland was “worse than in any part of the United Kingdom”.
The Record quotes the Chancellor: “Frankly, the performance of the NHS in Scotland under the SNP is worse than in any part of the United Kingdom, and that money now needs to be used to address the priorities of the Scottish people.”
She added: “In Scotland, the SNP now need to use that money that we have allocated wisely to start to reduce those waiting lists in Scotland, because they are out of control, and that is a sad legacy of the Government in Scotland.” Out of control here – really? But NOT in Labour-run Wales?
Meanwhile in England, the response to Labour’s budget from the specialist health think tank, the Nuffield Trust is typical of its peers. It is dampening down expectations of rapid or substantial change: in the performance of NHS England
‘The increase in the overall Department of Health and Social Care budget is sufficient to meet the urgent £4.8bn funding gap facing the NHS in England. However, it is less clear how non-NHS health spending, such as for public health, will fare once those unavoidable immediate pressures in the NHS have been addressed. The Secretary of State has been correct to caution ahead of time that patients are unlikely to notice rapid improvements in their care.’
And given the critical issues around delayed discharge from hospitals, this from the Nuffield Trust is also notable: “It is disappointing that today’s Budget does little to stabilise the beleaguered social care sector in the immediate term, and that the supporting rhetoric made no mention at all of the future reform it so desperately needs.”
Source https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/funding-promised-in-budget-will-meet-nhs-day-to-day-needs-but-wont-stretch-towards-government-ambitions-to-re-build
So a consensus is developing in England that the harms of more than a decade of underfunding of NHS England can’t and won’t be ‘fixed’ by the new money from the Budget: meanwhile in Scotland the narrative is that Labour has just gifted a magic wand to the worst performing NHS in the UK!
A New Statesman article (November 1) referred to the Secretary of State for Scotland and to Barnet consequentials arising from the Budget: ‘As Scottish Secretary Ian Murray put it, “that money must reach frontline services, to bring down waiting lists and lift attainment in our schools.”
The article adds: ‘Sarwar, with some justification, will expect the Nats to blow it, which gives him a renewed opportunity to sell Labour as the party that can arrest national decline.’ (Source https://archive.ph/4uCcL )
LikeLiked by 2 people
” BMA (Scotland) Chair, Dr Iain Kennedy looking every bit the serious professional who still practices with a stethoscope like they did back in the day ” – With a blood pressure meter (bugger all to do with a stethoscope) pointing up toward the unseen tutor whose head must be at ceiling level…
What bothered me most about ” The leader of Scotland’s doctors has called for rural GPs to get higher pay and special status to cope with a critical shortfall of medics in the Highlands, islands and rural counties ” was the utterly bizarre notion a pay increase and “I’m speshull” badge for Scottish doctors immediately solved a UK-wide manpower shortage caused by WM policy decisions many decades in the making and preceding formation of SG by some considerable measure….
LikeLike
I have once more turned off Drivetime as the BBC platform this man. Since his appointment as BMA Chair, he has constaly backed Starmer word for word on the future of the NHS. His uphemistic terms make it clear that he is open to a 2-tier health system in Scotland.
However, I am sure that I learned that he was not only a Labour supporter who had cleared out his social media account(s) upon being appointed the Chair. And in fact had either held a Labour membership post or political nomination for the party? I would appreciate if anyone can find the evidence of this.
LikeLike
Apologies for the typos and spellng. Let’s try again:
I have once more turned off Drivetime as the BBC platform this man. Since his appointment as BMA Chair, he has constantly backed Starmer word for word on the future of the NHS. His euphemistic terms make it clear that he is open to a 2-tier health system in Scotland.
However, I am sure that I learned that he was not only a Labour supporter who had cleared out his social media account(s) upon being appointed the Chair. But in fact had either held a Labour membership post or political nomination for the party? I would appreciate if anyone can find the evidence of this.
LikeLike