100% of 328 prisoner referrals started alcohol-dependency treatment within three week target yet Herald cannot be ‘trusted’ to report that

Professor John Robertson OBA

From Public Health Scotland on 25 March 2025, for the quarter 1 October to 31 December 2024, latest release:

328 referrals to prison-based services started treatment. Of these, 302 (92.1%) involved a wait of three weeks or less (alcohol, 100.0%; co-dependency, 98.6%; drugs, 88.9%).

In the Herald report today:

Scottish ministers ‘lack leadership’ in prison alcohol rehab

Only 42 referrals in June to September 2024, yet 328 in the next quarter?

They, a charity called SHAAP, base this on what prisoners ‘say’ rather on actual records?

Ministers lack leadership? What about the prison officers or their GPs who can refer the prisoners?

Source:

https://publichealthscotland.scot/publications/national-drug-and-alcohol-treatment-waiting-times/national-drug-and-alcohol-treatment-waiting-times-1-october-2024-to-31-december-2024/

8 thoughts on “100% of 328 prisoner referrals started alcohol-dependency treatment within three week target yet Herald cannot be ‘trusted’ to report that”

  1. I think I’m going to have to stop reading stuff just now. Everthing I turn my eye to enrages me so much I fear I might have a stroke.

    Of course, I won’t stop reading or learning. I’m far too nosy for that!😏

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  3. Apologies O/T

    It is being reported that the State visit for Trump will still go ahead.

    So if he, Trump, does apply Tariffs upon the UK then the weak UK PM will still reward him with a state visit after he, Trump, chooses to punish the UK with Tariffs.

    Are you digesting this information .

    Is this a strong UK PM leader in charge of a strong UK state ?

    Of course this has nothing to do with Brexit UK.

    Said only those who voted for and still support Brexit.

    This is what happens when you are boxed in by a Tory policy (Brexit) that sees your country (UK State) isolated and so with reduced options as a country (UK State).

    The Tories formerly did bad post Brexit Trade deals for the UK with Australia and New Zealand, that were also , as Trade deals, very bad and damaging for Scottish farmers too.

    Starmer wants a Trade deal with a US President who declares “America First” which then does not bode well for the UK State getting a fair trade deal.

    Funny how Starmer finds it seemingly far easier to make “tough decisions” that impacts the most vulnerable and poorest within the UK , yet with the above news of the State visit for Trump still going ahead, he seems ‘less tough’ on someone who is clearly both an Idiot and also very vindictive as the new US president, though Biden as the former President also did not give the UK State a Trade deal either (apparently because of Brexit and the NI Good Friday agreement being potentially compromised by Brexit).

    So Trump may penalise the UK but the UK PM then still intends to celebrate and welcome Trump to the UK with a State visit to meet with their English King ?????

    What a bloody mess.

    Liz S

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    1. “So if he, Trump, does apply Tariffs upon the UK then the weak UK PM will still reward him with a state visit after he, Trump, chooses to punish the UK with Tariffs”

      Well he has now done it, 10% for UK State, 20% for EU as Trump annoyed that the EU, unlike the UK , are in a stronger position as a combined Union of countries that makes it harder for Trump to try to exploit them.

      Who the Hell was it who said that Starmer and the English King had ‘pulled a blinder’ in offering this ungrateful and ungracious fake tanned Moron a State Visit, now they both look like a couple of Mugs Ha Ha

      The Not so ‘Great’ British PM and the ‘Not so ‘Great’ British (but really English with German ancestry) King are now helping Trump to Make America (Grate or) Great Again and make the British look like Chumps.

      ((English really, not British, as it was an English King and English government ‘Wot did it’ )

      Trump says MEGA which is ‘Make England Grovel Again’ …….(while they, as English politicians and English Royalty, pretend that they and others are British).

      Liz S

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  5. Also another O/T apologies.

    Long comment courtesy of me being inspired by a Labour MP and the excellent Twitter account of MSM Monitor.

    Imogen Walker , Labour MP for Hamilton and Clyde since last year, stood up today in PMQ’s to feed her weak and needy Labour leader with the usual #SotlandIsSh*te and also BTW her declaring that apparently #EnglandIsBetter.

    This kind of infantile behaviour neither impresses nor fools anyone into believing the credibility of what is being spun by MP’s like her as part of the weekly pantomime we witness , at PMQ’s and also at Scottish Q’s, and it is merely ‘Playing Politics”.

    Imogen stated “Mr Speaker , in Hamilton and Clyde valley my constituents are struggling to access the healthcare that they desperately need. One in six Scots are on a waiting list. Meanwhile in England the waiting lists have been coming down for the last five months and more than two million appointments have been made available. Does the Prime Minister agree with me that the SNP led government should stop blaming everybody else for their failings. Scotland’s broken public services are their responsibility”.

    She then stood her ground, looking over at the SNP MP’s opposite, with what she thought was a triumphant point having been made by her.

    It was not.

    It was , as per , merely a well rehearsed performance done badly aka a pathetic deed by a member of a desperate party who as a party and UK government are in decline.

    The other reality, that Imogen failed to mention for obvious reasons, is that the Scottish NHS is out performing the Labour Welsh NHS .

    Also the SNP MP’s , that I and other Scots helped elect, have to listen to this Cr*p week in and week out from the likes of her, a one-upmanship exercise that only exposes how unprofessional and petty Labour (and other UK Parties also) are.

    Of course her Labour colleagues also indulge in this immature weekly exercise where they , as Labour MP’s, are once again at one with their Better Together colleagues , the Tories (who also join in too, irrespective of whether it’s a Tory or Labour UK government at WM- ditto for Labour MP’s as well).

    Also with the recent survey just published on the public’s opinion on different nations NHS services we read that in Wales , the Welsh public, are the most dissatisfied as a nation with their Labour run Welsh NHS service , which in the survey saw the Labour run NHS in Wales  having the “lowest” in “overall satisfaction” in this public survey. (compared to other nations within so called Britain).

    Where the survey report stated ” A higher proportion of people in Wales (72%) were dissatisfied with the NHS compared to the survey average”.

    This pathetic performance by this female Labour MP was captured by MSM Monitor in his Twitter account where he tweeted:

    “This is what happens when you stand for an English party in a general election. You end up denigrating your own nation and its institutions and praising England and its institutions. You are, in effect, belittling your own people. You become a Westminster House Jock”

    Indeed totally agree. However this is a weekly exercise that proves that they, Labour, feel threatened by the SNP regaining votes at their , Labour’s , expense.

    How about Imogen Walker, as a Labour WM MP, as in one elected in a UK GE to (supposedly) represent a Scottish constituency, begins to challenge and question her UK leader and her UK Labour party as the new UK government.

    In her demanding as to why they, as a Labour UK government, are punishing the weakest, the most vulnerable and the poorest of her constituents using their UK government reserved powers in implementing cruel policies and making shameful decisions that would shame even the Tories.

    So instead of her whining about devolved matters how about her doing the job she was elected to do, which was to stand up for and defend her constituents from what her Labour party are currently doing (badly) as the new UK government .

    ( Same goes for all of her other Labour colleagues too at WM).

    Has she, Imogen, spoken to her colleague Labour MP Brian Leishman, as allegedly he (supposedly) is not seeing his Labour party (HQ) through the same rose tinted glasses that she seems to be seeing Labour HQ through, as he says Labour lied, they betrayed Scotland in the 2024 GE campaign and he is surely fighting for his future job as well as his honour really. Though still he sits as a Labour MP ??????

    Indeed as she was talking about Scottish people then perhaps she should look at the polls and see how Labour are in freefall in Scotland (and also elsewhere outwith Scotland too).

    That’s because people in Scotland , like Labour MP Brian Leishman , now also see that they were lied to and betrayed by Labour and, to quote Imogen, they are sick of Labour “blaming everybody else for their (own) failings” as a bad UK government .

    Surely Labour’s branch office in Scotland, as a party , and as those who sit in the Scottish parliament, are supposed to be the ones , as an opposition party, who are tasked with challenging the SNP Scottish government in the Scottish parliament on their performance and policies as a Scottish government..

    As opposed to what is always happening , where a double whammy of criticism is constantly being thrown at the SNP from both parliaments, WM and Holyrood, from both Labour MP’s at WM and also Labour MSP’s in Holyrood. (and also by the compromised media too).

    (The same weekly pantomime happened in PMQ’s and Scottish Q’s with Tories who were elected in Scotland when the Tory HQ were in power at WM).

    Labour are once again falling into the same trap pre 2015 where they think they own Scotland, in them having (undeservedly) won seats here last year , so arrogantly their MP’s then assume that they and their party, as the new UK government, are somehow superior, more popular and so they as a UK government are better performing than our Scottish government.

    If nothing else that is an unfair comparison when one considers the powers, control and money available to the UK government compared to the lack of powers, less control and less money available to our devolved Scottish government (which is, as a fact, obviously ignored by Imogen Walker Labour MP).

    Truth is they, Labour, have turned out to be far worse than the other right wing party, the Tories , and they are also ,as a party, on the same level as the other right wing party, Reform UK party. ( Also People, via a majority, did not vote FOR Labour last year in Scotland in the UK GE, they voted to STOP the Tories from getting re-elected as the UK government.

    I can now say that I hate Labour more than the Tories, and I really hate the Tories , so my current hate for Labour may be infinite. (and beyond).

    Vote SNP in 2026 and wipe the smug and assumed to be (but not) triumphant look from the face of someone like Labour MP Imogen Walker , who sits with her party in the HOC, as in she sits beside the real Nasty party.

    Nasty in thought, speech and manner.

    Her seat will be gone come 2029, or maybe sooner the way this useless Labour mob are playing at being UK government , and so far the majority of the Scottish public are giving a VONC in Labour at WM and I cannot see that changing anytime soon, or later either, for them at either Labour HQ or at their branch office in Scotland.

    Resistance is NOT futile , they are just trying to make you think it is.

    Also the more that people like Labour MP Imogen Walker pulls these kind of stunts at WM, then the stronger my resolve becomes to see the SNP keep getting elected as our Scottish government and also Scotland gaining it’s independence.

    I hope Imogen continues with this kind of behaviour and also this kind of talk , as she , and others like her, help to convert more people to the SNP and to Scottish independence too, as it just becomes too unbearable to have to tolerate politicians like her , who supposedly , but do not , represent Scotland as their British hearts and heads are with England only….and also with their pathetic useless party too…always).

    Liz S

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  6. Labour are finished. Out on their ear next GE.

    Labour are increase funding NHS, reportedly £22Billion. The cuts under the Tories.
    Covid was funded £270Billion over two years. How much did Scotland get?
    £Billions wasted on PPE contracts not properly scrutinised. For Tories and their associates.

    The Tories wasted £Billions on HS2 and Hickley Point. Trident and redundant weaponry a total waste of monies. Westminster spends £13Billion a year decommissioning nuclear. Increasing all the time.

    Scottish Gov funds SNHS £18Billion + social care. Another £2Billion will make services better. Labour cutting disability payments £5Billion. More people will end up in hospital. No joined up thinking.

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  7. Pingback: A morning of just prison addiction deaths, domestic abuse and job losses, chosen specially by the BBC Scotland editor, and the good news they won’t be telling you – Talking-up Scotland

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