Author: johnrobertson834

Retired Professor of Media Politics Not-for-profit independent political analysis
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As police officers in England & Wales become ‘too exhausted’ Scotland has 23% more police officers to deal with 17% fewer crimes.

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Across BBC TV News and the tabloids including The Sun, today, the above and: FOUR out of every five cops are feeling stressed over workloads, a survey reveals today. And more than three-quarters of them say they are too exhausted to perform their duties properly. The rank-and-file Police Federation of England and Wales has declared a public health emergency in policing. Acting deputy national chairman Paul Williams will today tell its annual conference in London: “Policing is a service making its people sick. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/40768891/public-health-emergency-policing-stress-exhaustion/ Nothing from BBC Scotland yet but how do the figures compare. Do Scottish cops face as … Continue reading As police officers in England & Wales become ‘too exhausted’ Scotland has 23% more police officers to deal with 17% fewer crimes.

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Scottish Government advised care homes to isolate discharged hospital patients three weeks before other three UK nations saving unknown number of lives as nearly 3 000 were lost in England

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By stewartb The Covid Inquiry report on care homes identifies multiple, alleged ‘failings’ by government bodies and ministers. But whilst it makes clear the invidious decisions and trade-offs that faced the authorities, it seems to avoid drawing what is – perhaps to the lay person – the obvious conclusion that there was no ideal, harm-free approach to mitigating risks to care home residents AND the wider public needing hospitalisation available to governments across the UK as the pandemic took hold. In terms of mitigating the risks from discharges from hospitals to care homes, this from the Covid Inquiry report is … Continue reading Scottish Government advised care homes to isolate discharged hospital patients three weeks before other three UK nations saving unknown number of lives as nearly 3 000 were lost in England

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Due to 40% greater inspection frequency and other factors such as earlier isolation and earlier vaccine delivery, Covid deaths in Scottish care homes were much lower but that cannot be fully demonstrated due to commercial protective secrecy in the sector in England

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A quick one. In the period prior to the pandemic, England inspected 8 155 hospitals, care homes and other healthcare-related places with a particular emphasis on infection control in the light of annual flu outbreaks, sometimes deadly. All things being equal with just under a tenth of the population, you might expect the inspections figure in Scotland to be around 820 but it was 1 129, nearly 40% more. Source: https://covid19.public-inquiry.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/19064857/M6_Report_Accessible.pdf Due to this and other factors such as earlier isolation and vaccine delivery, Covid deaths in Scottish care homes were much lower but that cannot be full demonstrated fully … Continue reading Due to 40% greater inspection frequency and other factors such as earlier isolation and earlier vaccine delivery, Covid deaths in Scottish care homes were much lower but that cannot be fully demonstrated due to commercial protective secrecy in the sector in England

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Nearly six years ago 5 research studies found scale of Covid deaths was largely due to private care home owners over-reliant on travelling agency staff, denying sick pay to staff and failing to test them in-house

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Again, I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve countered that myth about hospital discharges causing care home outbreaks but, one more time quickly: There is no evidence at all that any of the discharges of hospital cases into care homes caused any of the outbreaks in those homes. There are repeated research reports showing that agency staff working in more than one of the, especially, larger corporate-owned homes did, unwittingly, cause the outbreaks. Here’s the evidence again: The charitable MHA with a presence in Scotland did research into its own homes and discovered this: Large numbers of staff could … Continue reading Nearly six years ago 5 research studies found scale of Covid deaths was largely due to private care home owners over-reliant on travelling agency staff, denying sick pay to staff and failing to test them in-house

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Not a word on hospital discharges in first of deadly care home inspections in 2020 as care home owners are revealed to be guilty for Covid deaths

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In December 2020, as deaths began to rise again in care homes and opposition parties returned to the smell of blood they detected from their ‘common sense’ unqualified notion that hospital discharges must be responsible, the Care Inspectorate applied to cancel the registration of Thornlea Nursing Home in Loanhead Midlothian. There was no mention of hospital discharges as a suspected cause of infections and deaths, by the Care Inspectorate in December 2020 and there is none in the final report released yesterday but there is, ten times, mention of failures of infection control by the staff, often untrained and under-staffed, … Continue reading Not a word on hospital discharges in first of deadly care home inspections in 2020 as care home owners are revealed to be guilty for Covid deaths

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Hospital discharges into care homes – Scottish Government guidance for the home owners was stricter and care homes that received discharges actually had a lower rate of Covid because they were the best and made sure they did

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Hospital discharges into care homes – Scottish Government guidance was stricter and thus it ‘is not exposed to legal liability’ The Scottish Guidance It is of note, as the Court recognised, that the Scottish equivalent guidance of 26th March stated that …[i]f a patient being discharged from hospital is known to have had contact with other COVID- 19 cases and is not displaying symptoms, secondary care staff must inform the receiving facility of the exposure. The receiving facility should ensure the exposed individual is isolated for 14 days following exposure to minimise the risk of a subsequent outbreak within the … Continue reading Hospital discharges into care homes – Scottish Government guidance for the home owners was stricter and care homes that received discharges actually had a lower rate of Covid because they were the best and made sure they did

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Will Jackie Baillie now retract her claim that hospital discharges caused unlawful care home Covid deaths as top academics find it insignificant

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In May 2022, the above claims were being made repeatedly by Scottish Labour. Yesterday, Baillie popped up shamelessly as the Covid Inquiry returned to England: We’ve posted many times to dispute the above but now, from UK COVID-19 INQUIRY – MODULE 7 Closing statement on behalf of Public Health Scotland in the UK COVID-19 Inquiry relative to the Module 7 hearing, published today, the last word: While PHS fully acknowledges that every death in a care home death was regrettable, its analysis did not find a statistically significant association between hospital discharge of any type and the occurrence of a … Continue reading Will Jackie Baillie now retract her claim that hospital discharges caused unlawful care home Covid deaths as top academics find it insignificant

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Wrong, Kevin – As Protestants increasingly find a home in Reform UK, Scotland’s Catholics support for the SNP surges from 18% to 48%

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Kevin McKenna at the Herald is in SNP Overdrive these days. I keep ignoring it as best I can but something pees me off too much and here I am again. I come from a ‘Rangers’ family going back decades. My dad, working in an American factory with no closed shops found out Catholics were not aliens and left with me for Falkirk FC. I married Bernadette, in the Chapel and signed things. With a useless Higher History (B) I taught myself about the Empire and it’s atrocities in Ireland. Why is McKenna’s claim pure excrement of the male bovine? … Continue reading Wrong, Kevin – As Protestants increasingly find a home in Reform UK, Scotland’s Catholics support for the SNP surges from 18% to 48%

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10.1% wait for more than half a day in NHS England’s Type 1 Emergency departments but only 5.4% do in Scotland – thousands saved after years with no strikes

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For some time now, if I offer any criticism of the media activity of Royal College of Emergency Medicine (Scotland) officers, I get long ‘hurt’ comments from Anonymouses. The media keep calling trade union reps, oh, OK ‘royal college’ reps, ‘leading’ doctors. They’re not especially though all of them are more impressive figures than me. It’s misleading and offensive to all the other doctors, some actually leading large teams, some at the ‘leading edge’ of new methods. Second, they insist on a ‘crisis’ when performance is demonstrably better than in NHS England where their colleagues seem less concerned to condemn … Continue reading 10.1% wait for more than half a day in NHS England’s Type 1 Emergency departments but only 5.4% do in Scotland – thousands saved after years with no strikes

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Jackie Baillie hides Matt Hancock’s denial of PPE to Scotland and our gift of two million facemasks to England

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Jackie Baillie yesterday knowingly, I’m sure, twists the truth of PPE supplies during the pandemic to blame the SNP for the sins of the UK Government as it tried to reserve PPE supplies, paid for by all across the UK, just for English care homes, in a desperate attempt to head of the storm of death they faced. She also omits to remind us of the failures of the privately owned care homes in Scotland, under-resourcing PPE themselves and underpaying staff so that those infected were unable to afford to stay at home. 15 July 2026, The Times had the … Continue reading Jackie Baillie hides Matt Hancock’s denial of PPE to Scotland and our gift of two million facemasks to England