The Herald today with another context-free report to help us know if that’s a big amount and if we should be concerned about it. All things being equal, you might expect the total in England, for the same year, to have been, ten times higher, £32 million. Only for Local authorities and the UK Government civil service, not including the NHS so lower than the actual total amount, the figure in England last year, was £680 million, more than 20 times greater, per head of population. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/01/04/golden-goodbyes-council-staff-surge-highest-pandemic https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/02/08/surge-civil-servants-handed-100k-golden-goodbyes Other public bodies (e.g., NHS trusts, arm’s-length bodies) report exit payments in … Continue reading England’s public bodies paying out for shocking ‘golden goodbyes’ to public servants, per head of population, at least 20 times more than in Scotland

Only The Sun, no friend of the SNP, today with the above good news. BBC Scotland not a word. The newspapers? Not a word on their front pages. Maybe it was hard to find this story. From the Scottish Government News website, surely on auto alert for any self-respecting journo: Financial support for unpaid carers in Scotland is being strengthened in recognition of their vital role. From today (Monday 16 March) carers who look after more than one person for at least 20 hours a week will be able to claim the new Carer Additional Person Payment, worth over £500 … Continue reading Carers in Scotland now better off than anywhere else in the UK but don’t tell anyone!

From ITV News at 6.30pm tonight based on their own survey: A special report on the corridor care crisis in Wales where it appears to be more common than in anywhere else in the UK. 89 000 treated in corridors in one health trust. and on their website: It comes as new figures reveal almost 89,000 patients were treated in corridors or other non-clinical environments between 2022 and the end of October 2025 in hospitals run by Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board. In February this year, an undercover investigation by the S4C current affairs programme Y Byd ar Bedwar filmed dozens of … Continue reading Corridor care shocking 4 times as common in Labour Wales than in SNP Scotland to cast serious doubt on whether Scottish Labour’s Jackie Baillie could cope as Health Secretary

Thanks to Dottie for alerting me to this. On BBC News at 6 tonight reporting on the Meningitis deaths in Kent, we were surprised to see the above figure of only 90% having had the Meningitis B vaccine by 5 years-old. Why do I say only? From Public Health Scotland’s Childhood immunisation statistics Scotland Quarter ending 30 September 2025 [latest data]: Uptake for children aged 12 months old was: Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine (PCV) (95.5%), 6-in-1 (94.3%), MenB (94.3%), Rotavirus (92.2%). https://publichealthscotland.scot/publications/childhood-immunisation-statistics-scotland/childhood-immunisation-statistics-scotland-quarter-ending-30-september-2025/ 94.3% by 12 months in Scotland and only 90% by 5 years in England? Worrying? The World Health Organization … Continue reading Higher meningitis vaccine uptake in Scotland at 94.3% by 12 months should reduce infection significantly according to Lancet research report

They did come close in 2021, but the Scottish Conservatives after Liz Truss, whom Sharon Dowey, above, supported enthusiastically, and now facing a near extinction event in May, are so far behind that their claim above is frankly laughable. Things have changed. Look at all the opinion polls since the beginning of 2026. At best, they’re coming in 4th, 25 points behind the SNP. In two of the polls, they’re even 5th, behind the Lib Dems or the Greens! Now I know there are local variations but in the Ipsos poll in 25 February, in the South Scotland region, they … Continue reading Ayr Conservatives are living in the pre-Truss past and will be lucky to come in 3rd – Only the SNP can keep those monsters, Reform UK, out!

From the NHS Jubilee today NHS Golden Jubilee has officially become the largest centre for hip and knee replacements in the United Kingdom, marking a major milestone in the delivery of orthopaedic care across NHS Scotland. In the period from 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, NHS Golden Jubilee performed 4,308 hip and knee replacements, surpassing all other UK centres in Britain during that period, according to official data from the National Joint Registry (NJR). This represented a 29.6% increase in procedures compared to the previous year (3,323 in 2023/24), reflecting the hospital’s commitment to expanding capacity and reducing … Continue reading Clydebank Hospital applauded for phenomenal 30% increase in knee and hip ops in just one year

BBC Scotland‘s insert in BBC Breakfast this morning had the above and online – https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp854pn5meno The bad news was the suggestion that resident doctors in Scotland, despite having settled a pay and conditions deal, unique in the UK, are unhappy and planning to leave the country in numbers. You have to wonder where they got Mike, above, from, and who he is related to/connected to in Scottish Labour. Is there any basis for worrying about this in Scotland as opposed to in England? In Scotland, 22% of doctors reported considering moving to practice abroad, which is lower than the UK … Continue reading Despite training almost twice as many doctors per head as England, NHS Scotland still retains a higher percentage but BBC Scotland find one lost in Australia