02/05/2013 Newsnight Scotland

Tonight on Newsnight Scotland. Three NHS patients have died after

contracting a new strain of the Clostridium Difficile bug. How can

we protect ourselves against these things, and would it help if we

knew where those deaths occurred? And currency, Calman and committee

reports. A look back at the week with two former advisors to two

First Ministers. Good evening. The NHS in Scotland has done a good job

in tackling hospital-acquired infections over the last few year -

partly through the simple expedient of telling doctors, nurses and

visitors to wash their hands. But C-Diff is capable of rapid and

deadly mutation. And one mutation, never seen anywhere else in the

world, has killed three Scottish patients. So, how do we protect

ourselves against it and other bugs? And wouldn't it help if we

Clostridium Tata Steel, a bacteria which is constantly mutating. New

strains are emerging all the time. There are around 500 known

variations. A new one made its Three patients were seriously ill

due to this strain. It is not known how they became infected. We have

seen hundreds of new strains. It caught our attention. A few

patients, within a relatively short period, develop the disease within

a small area. We had to investigate if this was causing a particular

problem. There are lots of hospital acquired infections but it seems as

if CDF has almost become a household name in Scotland. It was

at this hospital, almost exactly five years ago, it emerged that 55

patients had become infected and 18 died. It was Scotland's worst

outbreak. One of those who died was Sarah McGinty. She was admitted to

hospital after suffering from a stroke. She never left. It was the

most awful week. To see somebody going from somebody who was coming

home - although she was paralysed - her mental faculties were there.

She was always the same person we always knew. That week, she became

a shadow and lost loads of weight. By Wednesday, police said commit

you need to keep fighting. -- we said, you need to keep fighting.

She was so ill. She was saying, I cannot do this any more. It is

spread through faeces. Most people contract it while in hospital. As a

result of the outbreak, more robust controlled infection measures have

been introduced and they seem to be working. In U-brake, 765 patients

died after contracting the bag. -- in 2008. There has been a reduction

of 70%. If good hygiene can save lives, why not say whether a new

strain of the infection has been found? You use every avenue. Tim

miss out the biggest avenue - the general public - they are in daily

contact with the most vulnerable. I think it is an rages and appalling.

They need to hang their heads in shame. -- think it is outrageous.

Officials maintained There is no increased risk to patients or the

public. I'm joined now by Dr Martin Donagahy, who is the medical

director of Health Protection Scotland. Can you give us an update

on this new strain and what is happening? It is one of 500 strains

- it is a new one. It doesn't pose any other risk to the other 500 in

terms of ease of spreading or its impact on health. We are looking

into it, as we do on every new strain. We collaborate across

Europe and the UK, investigating these things. So far, we have no

indication that this new strain is of any greater risk than the others.

You do not actually know? We have recognised it and are investigating

it. Just to be clear... As far as you know, there is no greater risk.

We know enough to come to an initial view that there is no

additional risk. We have to balance two factors - one is the public

health risk. Just to clarify, it is not the situation that is analogous

to what happened in the Vale of Eton. It was picked up by a routine

monitoring. There have been no pointers to the fact that the

hospitals which have been affected Park at increased risk. -- are at.

There are three elderly people involved - families who are

involved - he had a right to confidentiality. The rules by which

we work, we cannot divulge patient details. -- you have a right to

confidentiality. When you have small numbers like that, experience

has been that people can be traced - that has occurred. What you are

telling people right across Scotland is, if they are going for

an operation, or they have an elderly parent who is going for an

operation, there is in you strain of this work which she cannot

categorically say poses a greater risk than existing strains. It has

been found in a hospital in Scotland but those people have no

right to know whether the hospital they are going into his web the bug

has been found. It is like something out of the Soviet Union.

This is a brisk situation. We are saying there is no evidence of an

increased risk. -- a risk situation. Anyone visiting needs to take extra

precautions - wash their hands for example. There is no evidence from

the hospital There is a situation of increased risk. This has been

captured by routine monitoring. It has been investigated and there is

no just a short -- there is no risk. Be sure you take every precaution.

In China, there is a new strain of bird flu. The Chinese Communist

government has not tried to hide which hospitals the patience the

rim of which areas of the country - - the patients are in awe which

areas of the country it affects. need to balance the rights of

individuals who have had a recently deceased member of a family. We are

having to establish that balance regularly and review it. In this

situation, the assessment we have done is that if we do release that

information, there is an increased probability these individuals will

says that we should have a separate Scottish currency. To budget at its

kindest, this is complete shambles. On currency and pensions, is he not

gambling with the financial future of every man, woman and child in

Scotland? He is under pressure from friend and foe to wobble. Is he

wobbling? The First Minister stood firm and said he would leave any

wobbling to the Liberal Democrats. He said they preferred to keep the

pound is part of a sterling zone. This is the country with a strong

budget position. This is the country with a surplus in the balance of

trade. The idea that we will be beholden to a country with a worse

fiscal position and the deficit is simply quite incredible. It's just

bite the jeering and in the Uzi Astec displays of support, at one

point it seemed that the whole independence debate was no laughing

matter. It all began when Susan Kalman poked fun at the yes campaign

on a topical radio news quiz. are not going to build a border,

they are going to keep the pound, we will still have the well family. So

I'm not sure what's going on. was enough to attract the eye of

some pro-independence campaigners. She said she was accused of racism

towards her own people. The foreign affairs committee in Westminster

said that a yes vote could am age the rest of the world's opinion of

the UK. It was described as baseless and scaremongering.

I'm joined now by David Whitton, Donald Dewar and Stephen Gethins,

aspiring SEP, MEP, and former adviser to Alex Salmond. There is a

growing perception, we had to journalist on last night broadly

sympathetic to the yes campaign, both saying they were worried that

the UK government and parliament were coming out with all these

reports, and there was nothing coming back on the other direction.

If you were still advising Alex Salmond, what would you tell him to

do? To be fair, I think you have got to leave certain things to the yes

campaign. I think that the yes campaign has been very good at

trying to be positive. One specific point on the issue of currency. I

very much doubt if Alex Salmond could leave it up to the yes

campaign given that the president of it takes a completely different view

to him. So the yes campaign isn't much use to him there. If two

different political parties have different views on the currency,

that is fair enough, because if there is an independent Scotland, it

will be for the Scottish people to elect a government, and different

parties will put forward different policies. You have Labour and the

Tories who were working very closely together. But the problem is that

the SNP's argument is that you can vote yes safe in the knowledge that

the pound in your pocket will stay the same, and if your own campaign

is saying, no, it won't, it may well be the argument becomes, you can

vote yes and we will decide later what to do with the currency, but

that is a very different point from the reassuring message that Alex

Salmond is trying to give. What would you tell him to do? What I

would tell him to do, he is still very popular, there is still a long

way to go. He will still get a positive vision for independence,

just occasionally, maybe he could have a go at the Labour and Tory

coalition over this. Let's say you are adviser to him, try to protect

him, what would you say that they need to do? They have to get a grip

of what the policy actually is. We have had more changes of mind on

what our currency position is then there are names for the new fourth

quarter. If you were special adviser, after the bashing they have

had on the currency, what would you say he needs to do? He has to start

making sure that people believe that they have a plan for separation once

the referendum is over. He has to convince people that he is going to

win it. At the moment, they are all over the place. The funniest thing

this week was Jon Snow turning him over on Channel four, when he turned

back to attacking Alistair Darling and ran away. He has got to stop

that. He has got to start coming across as a statesman. I know it is

difficult for him, but he has to try to do that. He will also have to try

to convince people that he knows what he is doing. At the moment, he

and the yes campaign give every impression that they don't know what

they are doing. If you stripped away the cheap jibes in what he has just

said... There wouldn't be much left! But there is a grain of truth,

that that is the problem. The S NP are not coming over as credible in

what they are saying. I don't think that is true. The SNP got elected in

2011 based on doing a pretty good job with a small number of powers

that they had. I think they are still perceived as having done a

good job. Different political parties have different views on

currency, and that is the prerogative of different parties to

do so. I think they are doing a good job on this. They have good done a

good job currently in government, and that is a good case to build on.

But one of the colonels in what he was saying is that he has to

convince people that what they are saying is credible. And they have to

stop these cyber attacks on anybody who disagrees. If somebody makes a

joke about the SNP position, suddenly they are being attacked.

Even your own Douglas Fraser, your economics correspondent, gets

attacked for hinting that Nessie might not exist. That is

ridiculous. They have to get a grip of that. You do the get that from

both sides. We are all going to have to laugh at ourselves occasionally

in a long campaign. What we have seen this week, and to be fair, what

we have seen this week for the first time, our senior people in the SNP

saying to some of these commentators, on the Internet, stop

it. You are right. Shaun Robson put out a tweet, she said that people

should be allowed to make jokes. One of the great things about Scotland

is the ability to laugh at ourselves, and we are going to have

to have lighter moments over the next little while. What would your

advice to his lot be? My advice to this lot would be, I think they have

to set out a positive case, because I think your negativity only goes so

far, and this is something that played out in the 2011 election. We

are still to hear a positive case and vision for the union. But we are

not the ones who want to break it up. You have to make the case for

breaking up the union. If it isn't broke, don't fix it.

But the truth in what he is saying is that, not that you shouldn't be

negative, you are right, but that there has got to be some positivity.

There are lots of things going on, Gordon. Joanne Lamont has had her

own commission looking at things, and after the referendum is over and

we have run the referendum, if the result independence, there are lots

of plans to look at how devolution will grow as the years go on.

are adding to be tremendously positive, but not yet? Why would we

stop having fun when the SNP keep giving us open goal is to kick them

into? They have a plan, but they won't tell us what it is! That is

all we have time for this week. Good seize on decent sunshine across much

of central and eastern England to start with. A little more cloud

further west, and some thicker cloud, rain and strong winds to the

North. Certainly by the middle of the afternoon, that will be sitting

across Northern Ireland, the disappointing 10 Celsius. There will

be some snow above 300 metres to the higher ground, the tops of the

mountains in Scotland. That rain will slowly sinks south across the

borders by the middle of the afternoon. We cling on to the

sunshine, though, through the Midlands, East Anglia and the

south-east corner. A little more cloud across the south-west, and the

cloud thickens for a few showers perhaps across west facing coast of

Wales. Further inland, you will keep writer skies. Certainly from many of

our major cities, there is rain to be found in the north, disappointing

field to things on Friday, and a better day for the start of the

weekend. We keep the sunshine and the warmth, little more cloud into

the south-east for Saturday. And the reason for the cloudy skies is that