In the Herald today: Almost 1400 women are preparing to launch legal action against their trade unions over the way officials dealt with historic equal pay disputes within Scotland’s councils. The workers, some of whom claim to have lost out on tens of thousands of pounds, are lodging claims against Unison, Unite and GMB under a new class action process introduced in Scotland earlier this year. For more than a year from early 2018, BBC Scotland often featured extended coverage of marches and interviews implying that the current SNP Glasgow City Council was responsible for the wages discrimination against women when it … Continue reading Will BBC Scotland serialise this women’s struggle as it exposes Richard Leonard’s chums? Will Gary Smith be interviewed?

The Record claims today: Targets for cancer treatment are being breached despite a massive reduction in those even being referred because of Covid. In the three months to June, referrals fell by almost a quarter – but there was a worsening record of patients being seen and treated in time. The targets being breached and worsening record suggestions are at best misleading. First, on the 62-day standard that 95% of eligible patients will wait a maximum of 62 days from referral to first cancer treatment: 84.1% of patients started treatment within the 62-day standard, compared to 84.7% [down only 0,6%] in the previous … Continue reading Daily Record scaremongers with cliched and inaccurate report on flood of cancer deaths

Up to 70 Scottish sub-postmasters may have had their lives ruined by a faulty computerised system introduced by the UK New Labour Government, twenty years ago, as part of their ‘modernising‘ of a public corporation. The Scottish Labour ‘executive’ in in Holyrood, of course, took no part in this process, was not consulted and did not scrutinise it. They knew their place. The Bill which turned the Post Office into a more aggressively market-oriented service of the kind predisposed to expose its employees to stress and risk, was ironically introduced by former postman, Alan Johnson: The Bill has four main … Continue reading Post Office scandal shows how ineffective Scottish Labour ‘executive’ was

In the last four weeks, 138 health and care units reports were published by the Care Inspectorate for Scotland. The report for the one ‘unsatisfactory‘ case, when re-inspected on 13th May 2020, the well-known Portree care home for the elderly run by HC-One, is most disturbing. The words ‘infection control‘ appear 12 times and this section about ‘redeployed‘ or agency staff is astonishing: We considered there was a real risk of redeployed staff becoming infected, given the unsatisfactory infection control arrangements. Three redeployed HC-One staff chose not to have a COVID-19 test despite being requested to do so by public … Continue reading Covid Update: Only one Scottish care home found with infection control problems

Above, the Care Quality Commission’s inspection reports for health and social care in England in the last four weeks. Above, the Care Inspectorate’s inspection reports for health and social care in Scotland in the last four weeks. Note: The ‘ungraded’ are still in the process of being graded. THE CQC states: It’s important to remember that if a provider hasn’t been graded yet, it doesn’t necessarily mean that their service is not of a high standard. It is very common for new providers to remain ungraded until their first inspection which can take up to a year to occur. I’m … Continue reading Covid Update: Scotland’s hospitals and care homes far more likely to be inspected and far less likely to fail

Continue reading September Statistics

Tory List MSP, Dean Lockhart, helpfully took the time to remind us of the level of support for Scotland’s return to the EU by asking Mike Russell for confirmation of his claim that a former president of the EU had said to his face that Scotland would be able to join again. Mike gave him two: Continue reading Scottish Conservative reminds us of EU welcome for Scotland

One or two Tusker readers have told me that they are using information posted here to generate letters to the press countering Unionist, sometimes SiU, letters. The above in the Herald today looks like one of them. Well done! I hope it might inspire more of you to join in. You can comment on the responses here: https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18757442.letters-covid-fight-no-1-priority/?action=success#comments-feedback-anchor Continue reading Fighting back

We know definitively that care home deaths were mostly due to the over-use of agency staff working across several homes to deal with the habitual under-staffing and insecure contracts employed by corporate owners. Despite that, betraying all their supposed socialist history, Scottish Labour and the GMB, tried their hardest to pin the blame on the Scottish Government. I won’t repeat the evidence again. Now, they sense the opportunity to try again over the maltreatment of students. Once more they will work to protect some very affluent institutions like the universities of St Andrews, Edinburgh and Glasgow and the academic elites … Continue reading As with the care homes Scottish Labour sides with rich elites

Today Public Health England (PHE) reported 134 new cases of infections in care homes, in the week ending 21st September. The Guardian today suggests the figure may be higher. In the same week, the Scottish Care Inspectorate claimed 4 new cases, taking the total up to 95 or 9% of care homes. England has ten times the population and so might be expected to have 40 new cases of care home infection but it has 134, more than three times higher than Scotland. Sources: Click to access Weekly_COVID19_Surveillance_Report_week_39_FINAL.pdf https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-trends-in-daily-data/ Continue reading Covid outbreaks in English care homes more than three times higher