Professor John Robertson OBA
From BBC Scotland‘s short insert in BBC Breakfast this morning:
GPs are attending 45% fewer home visits in Dumfries and Galloway, after a trial scheme with the Scottish Ambulance Service. Paramedics can now attend routine home visits, after which they report back to GPs fro further action. It’s hope the scheme could be replicated in other rural areas.
GP – ‘Historically you GP would do house calls at the end of the morning surgery or perhaps in the afternoon. But the busier we get, the later visits were getting done, so now the people are being seen by somebody much quicker, much sooner in the day, and therefore care gets started sooner, admissions to hospital get done faster.
Here’s the opening screen in the report.
That makes the first impression and as research has shown, for many viewers, that’s the message that will stick.
The ordering of the ideas is not accidental, it’s edited carefully. All such mediated messages are.
The obvious, to us, main message, was the last point and, for honesty, informative value too, should have been something like:
Home visits in Dumfries and Galloway are being done by paramedics instead of GPs, much quicker, much sooner in the day, and therefore care gets started sooner, admissions to hospital get done faster. After a trial scheme with the Scottish Ambulance Service, paramedics can now attend routine home visits. This means that, as they get busier, GPs can attend 45% fewer home visits.
There’s an element of subjectivity here and they will claim that these reports are written at speed under-pressure in a way that non-journos don’t understand, with their message then that I’m being paranoid.
How would know if I might be paranoid? What if they always re-arrange messages so they start off negative?
There’s this from my research in 2014 of a full year of Reporting Scotland episodes:
The sequence of statements whereby anti-independence arguments preceded pro-independence responses as opposed to the reverse order is of interest. There was a clear majority (66:24) of the former, on Reporting Scotland where ‘bad news’ about independence came first. https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/bbc-bias-and-scots-referendum-new-report/
So, a long history of arranging a report to make sure it starts off negative with a nearly 3 to 1 ratio in research.
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I have never understood why GP’s, ambulance service managers etc don’t reply to this sort of negative framing and demand that it be restated properly. I’m sure the proper leaders of Dr’s and nurses could do the same and not rely on the likes of Ghulane to spread lies and misinformation.
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The answer to your question is that most of these reports are in the media in the negative framing because they have been given to the media by organisations like the BMA, RCN, etc who are seeking to gain financial and other benefits for their members.
Journalists, by training and, perhaps by personality, tend to approach things from a misanthropic perspective which mistrusts the motives of anyone. They are also employed by organisations whose senior members are intent on maintaining and adding to their power and wealth. They use the media to divide and conquer, trying to break up any solidarity amongst the general public to change things for the common good.
Alasdair Macdonald
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While I agree with all you say Alasdair, I feel that it goes much deeper. Without trying to sound like a conspiracy theorist, these journalists, as you say, are merely the mouthpieces of extremely powerful figures, who are not only adding to their power and wealth, but are also intent on doing the bidding of what I would call the British State, who are only too well aware that an Independent Scotland would be a huge loss to England. This, no matter which political party, or indeed company, if the latest opinion polls are to be believed, is in power at Westminster, cannot be allowed to happen. And despite the readership of print media rapidly declining, they still hold enormous sway. Add to that B.B.C News, especially B.B.C Scotland News, and you have a very powerful mix of propaganda, all designed to denigrate any achievement by a Scottish Government committed to Independence. When we do eventually manage to free ourselves of from the clutches of our captors, I believe it will be the greatest achievement ever by the Scottish people.
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All of which, to me, points to the GPs being the NHS stumbling block. We know, from personal experience, and also stories from friends and family, that if you try to get an appointment with a nurse or a doctor for advice on a small injury you are advised to attend A&E, an already overstretched department, something that makes no sense at all.
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