17/11/2013 Sunday Politics Scotland

Welcome to the Sunday Politics. Downing Street announces an inquiry

into allegations of hardball tactics and intimidation by unions in

industrial disputes. That's our top story.

Thousands dead. Hundreds of thousands without homes. Millions

affected. What is Britain doing to help the Philippines in the wake of

Typhoon Haiyan? We'll ask International Development Secretary

Justine Greening. Winter is coming and so, it seems,

is another crisis in England's hospitals. I'll be asking the Shadow

Health Secretary how he'd put a stop to the NHS's annual woes.

And on Sunday Politics Scotland: We'll be asking the Scottish Health

Secretary, Alex Neil, if hospitals here will be able to cope with the

pressures of the winter months. Janan Ganesh, Nick Watt and this

week, Zoe Williams, who'll be tweeting their thoughts throughout

the programme. The Government has announced a

review to investigate what the Prime Minister has called "industrial

intimidation" by trade union activists. Bruce Carr QC will chair

a panel to examine allegations of the kind of tactics that came to

light during the Grangemouth dispute, when the Unite union took

their protests - replete with a giant rat - outside the family homes

of the firms' bosses. Earlier this morning the Cabinet office minister,

Francis Maude spoke to the BBC and this is what he had to say. To look

at whether the law currently works and see if it is ineffective in

preventing the kind of intimidatory activity that was alleged to have

taken place around range mouth during the previous disputes --

Grangemouth. We make no presumptions at the beginning of this. I do think

it is a responsible thing for the government to establish what

happened and really do a proper review into whether the law is

adequate to meet the needs. That was Francis Maude. This is a purely

political move, isn't it? Unite did this a couple of times, it is hardly

happening all over the country but the government want to say, we are

prepared to investigate Unite properly, Labour isn't. This seemed

a lot worse when I thought it was a real rat. I thought it was a giant

dead rat. I am not sure if you know much about rats but real rats are

not this big, even the ones in London. The thing is, obviously it

is naked politics but I think it is more intelligent than it looks. They

are trying to taint Miliband as a week union puppet and that doesn't

really wash. They hammer away with it and it might wash for some

people. But it really castrates Miliband in the important issues he

has to tackle. Zero hours, living wage, all of those things in which

he needs to be in concert with the unions, and to use their expertise.

He is making them absolutely toxic to go anywhere near. It keeps the

Unite story alive, have to kill -- particularly since Mr Miller band is

under pressure to reopen the investigation into what Unite are up

to -- Mr Miliband. They are frustrated, not only at the BBC but

the media generally at what they think is a lack of coverage. I see

the political rationale from that respect. There is a risk. There are

union members who either vote Tory or are open to the idea of voting

Tory. All Lib Dem. If the party comes across as too zealous in as --

its antipathy, there is an electoral consequence. Ed Miliband has been

careful to keep a distance. Yes, they depend on vast amounts of

money. When Len McCluskey had a real go at the Blairites, Ed Miliband was

straight out there with a very strong statement. Essentially Len

McCluskey wanted Blairites in the shadow cabinet sacked and Ed

Miliband was keen to distance himself or for that is why it is not

quite sticking. Another story in the Sunday papers this morning, the Mail

on Sunday got hold of some e-mails. When I saw the headline I thought it

was a huge cache of e-mails, it turns out to be a couple. They peel

away the cover on the relationship between Ed Miliband and Ed Balls,

with some of Ed Miliband's cohorts describing what Mr balls is trying

to do as a nightmare. How bad are the relations? They are pretty bad

and these e-mails confirm the biggest open signal in Westminster,

which is that relations are pretty tense, -- open secret. That Ed

Miliband doesn't feel that Ed Balls is acknowledging the economy has

grown that Labour needs to admit to past mistakes. The sort of great

open signal is confirmed. On a scale of 1-10, assuming that Blair-Brown

was ten. I think it is between six and seven. They occupy this joint

suite of offices that George Cameron and -- David Cameron and George

Osborne had. It is not just on the economy that there were tensions,

there were clearly tensions over HS2, Ed Balls put a huge question

over it at his conference. There will be more tensions when it comes

to the third runway because my information is that Mr balls wants

to do it and Ed Miliband almost resigned over it when he was in

government. I don't think Ed Miliband is thinking very

politically because he has tried live without Ed Balls and that is

not tenable either. -- life without. He has defined a way of making it

work. That is where Tony Blair had the edge on any modern politician.

He didn't want to make Ed Balls his Shadow Chancellor, he had to.

Somebody said to him, if you make Ed Balls Shadow Chancellor, that will

be the last decision you take as leader of the Labour Party. Is it as

bad? I was surprised at how tame the e-mails were. At the FT it is

compulsory, one French word per sentence! To call him a nightmare,

compared to what they are willing to say in briefings, conversations,

bits of frustrations they express verbally come what is documented in

the e-mails is actually pretty light. It has been a grim week for

the people of the Philippines as they count the cost of the

devastation wrought by Typhoon Haiyan. HMS Daring has just arrived

near the worst hit areas - part of Britain's contribution to bring aid

to the country. It has been one of the worst natural

disasters in the history of the Philippines. Typhoon Haiyan hit the

country nine days ago, leaving devastation in its wake. The numbers

involved are shocking. The official death toll is over 3600 people, with

many thousands more unaccounted for. More than half a million people have

lost their homes and the UN estimates 11 million have been

affected. David Cameron announced on Friday that the UK government is to

give an extra ?30 million in aid, taking the total British figure ?250

million. An RAF Sea 17 aircraft landed yesterday with equipment to

help aid workers get too hard to reach areas. HMS Illustrious is on

its way and due to arrive next weekend. The British public have

once again dipped into their pockets and given generously. They have

given more than ?30 million to the Disasters Emergency Committee.

The International Development Secretary, Justine Greening, joins

me now for the Sunday Interview. Good morning, Secretary of State.

How much of the ?50 million that the government has allocated has got

through so far? All of it has landed on the ground now. HMS Daring has

turned up, that will be able to start getting help out to some of

those more outlying islands that have been hard to reach. We have

those more outlying islands that seen Save the Children and Oxfam

really being able to get aid out on the ground. We have a plane taking

off today that will not read just carrying out more equipment to help

clear the roads but will also have their staff on board, too. We have

?50 million of aid actually on the ground? We instantly chartered

flights directly from Dubai where we have preprepared human Terry and

supplies, and started humanity work -- humanitarian supplies.

A lot of it has now arrived. I think we have done a huge amount so far.

We have gone beyond just providing humanitarian supplies, to getting

the Royal Air Force involved. They have helped us to get equipment out

there quickly. We have HMS Illustrious sailing over there now.

Why has that taken so long? It was based in the Gulf and is not going

to get there until two weeks after the storm first hit and that is the

one ship we have with lots of helicopters. The first decision we

took was to make sure we could get the fastest vessel out there that

was able to help HMS Daring. HMS Illustrious was just finishing an

exercise and planning to start to head back towards the UK. We have

said to not do that, and diverted it. Shouldn't it have happened more

quickly? We took the decisions as fast as we were able to, you can't

just turn a big warship around like the HMS Illustrious. We made sure we

took those decisions and that is while it will be taking over from

HMS Daring come and that is why HMS Daring is ready there. It will be

able to provide key support and expertise that has not been there so

far. The US Navy is doing the heavy lifting here. The US Navy had the

USS Washington, there is an aircraft carrier, 80 planes, 5000 personnel

and they have the fleet, they are doing the real work. We obviously

helping but the Americans are taking the lead. It is a big international

effort. Countries like the US and the UK, that have a broader ability

to support that goes beyond simply call humanitarian supplies -- have

made sure we have brought our logistics knowledge, we have sent

out our naval vessels. It shows we are working across government to

respond to this crisis. Why does only just over 4% of your aid budget

go on emergency disaster and response? A lot depends on what

crises hit in any given year. We have done a huge amount, responding

to the crisis in Syria, the conflict there and the fact we have 2 million

refugees who have fled the country. We are part of an international

effort in supporting them. Shouldn't we beginning more money to that

rather than some of the other programmes where it is harder to see

the results question of if we were to give more money to the refugees,

it would be a visible result. We could see an improvement in the

lives of children, men and women. What we need to do is alongside that

is stop those situations from happening in the first place. A lot

of our development spend is helping countries to stay stable. Look at

some of the work we are doing in Somalia, much more sensible. Not

just from an immigration but there is a threat perspective. There is a

lot of terrorism coming from Somalia. You only have to look at

Kenya recently to see that. Which is why you talk about what we do with

the rest of the spend. It is why it is responsible to work with the

government of Somalia. Should we give more, bigger part of the budget

to disaster relief or not? I think we get it about right, we have to be

flexible and we are. This Philippine relief is on top of the work in

Syria. Where can you show me a correlation between us giving aid to

some failed nation, or nearly failed nation, and that cutting down on

terrorism? If you look at the work we have done in Pakistan, a huge

amount of work. Some of it short-term. It is written by

terrorism. That is -- ridden by terrorism. That is not going to fix

it self in a sense. Look at the work that we do in investing in

education. The things that little girls like Malala talk about as

being absolutely key. We are ramping up our aid to Pakistan, it will be

close to half ?1 billion by the time of the election. Why should British

taxpayers be giving half ?1 billion to a country where only 0.5% of

people in Pakistan pay income tax, and 70% of their own MPs don't pay

income tax. It is a good point and that is why we have been working

with their tax revenue authority to help them increase that and push

forward the tax reform. You are right, and I have setup a team that

will go out and work with many of these countries so they can raise

their own revenues. You really think you will raise the amount of tax by

sending out the British HRM see? How many troops I we sending out to

protect them? They don't need troops. We make sure that we have a

duty of care alongside our staff, but we have to respond to any crisis

like the Philippines, and alongside other countries we have two work

alongside them so that they can reinvest in their own public

services. If they can create their own taxes, will we stop paying aid?

We need to look at that but the new Pakistan Government has been very

clear it is a priority and we will be helping them in pursuing that.

Let me show you a picture. Who are these young women? I don't know, I'm

sure you are about to tell me. They are the Ethiopian Spice Girls and

I'm surprised you don't know because they have only managed to become so

famous because your department has financed them to the tune of ?4

million. All of the work we do with women on the ground, making sure

they have a voice in their local communities, making sure they have

some control over what happens to their own bodies in terms of

tackling FGM, female genital mutilation... Did you know your

department has spent ?4 million on the Ethiopian Spice Girls? Yes, I

do, and we have to work with girls and show them there is a life ahead

of them with opportunity and potential that goes beyond what many

of them will experience, which includes early and forced marriage.

It is part of the work we do with local communities to change

attitudes everything you have just said is immeasurable, and they

broadcast on a radio station that doesn't reach most of the country so

it cannot have the impact. It only reaches 20 million people and the

project has been condemned saying there were serious inefficiencies.

That aid report was done a while ago now, and it was talking about the

project when it first got going, and a lot of improvements have happened

since. I would go back to the point that we are working in very

difficult environments where we are trying to get longer term change on

the ground and that means working directly with communities but also

investing for the long-term, investing in some of these girls

start changing attitudes in them and their communities. Why does the

British taxpayers spend ?5 million on a Bangladesh version of Question

Time? We work with the BBC to make sure we can get accountabilities...

That is bigger then the BBC Question Time Normal -- budget. That includes

the cost of David Dimbleby's tattoo! We are working to improve

people's prospects but also we are working to improve their ability to

hold their governments to account so that when they are not getting

services on the ground, they have ways they can raise those concerns

with the people who are there to deliver services for them. In your

own personal view, should the next Conservative Government, if there is

one, should you continue to ring fence spending on foreign aid? But

it is critical that if we are going to spend 7.7% of our national

income, we should make sure it is in our national interest and that means

having a clear approach to humanitarian responses, in keeping

the country safe, and a clearer approach on helping drive economic

development and jobs so there is a long-term end of the dependency. Do

you believe in an shrine in the percentage of our GDP that goes on

foreign aid in law? Yes, and that is a coalition agreement. There have

been a lot of agreements that you are sceptical about ring fencing. We

are focused on shaking up the economy and improving our public

finances. Why haven't you done that? At the end of the day we will be

accountable but we are committed to doing that. You are running out of

time, will you do it? I hope we can find the Parliamentary time, but

even if we don't, we have acted as if that law is in place and we have

already met 0.7% commitment. If you are British voter that doesn't

believe that we should enshrine that in by law, which means that with a

growing economy foreign aid will rise by definition, and if you think

we should be spending less money on the Ethiopian Spice Girls, for whom

should you wrote in the next election? I think we have a very

sensible approach. I don't know what the various party manifestoes... The

only party who thinks we shouldn't be doing this is UKIP. I think you

have to look at the response to both the Philippines crisis and Children

In Need. Of all the steps we are taking to get the country back on

track, it shows the British people will respond to need when they need

it and it is one of the things that makes Britain's special.

Thank you. "It's always winter but never Christmas" - that's how

doctors describe life inside accident and emergency. The College

of Emergency Medicine have warned that this year could bring the

"worst crisis on record". If that dire prediction comes, expect a

spring of political recriminations, but how prepared are the NHS in

England? And what do they make of this autumnal speculation? Giles has

been to Leeds to find out. This winter has already come to our

hospitals. It had an official start date, November the 3rd. That is when

weekly updates are delivered to the NHS's most senior planners, alerting

them to any sudden changes in patient numbers coming in. Where do

they numbers register most then A They are the barometer for what

is going on everywhere else, and they are the pressure point, so if

the system is beginning to struggle then it is in the A department

that we see the problems. It is not that the problems are the A

departments, but they are the place where it all comes together. Plans

to tackle those problems start being drawn up in May and they look at

trends, even taking notice of any flu epidemics in New Zealand. They

also look at the amount of bets. But the weather, economic realities,

structural reforms, and changes to the general health of the

population, are all factors they have to consider. We get huge

amounts of information through the winter in order to help the NHS be

the best it can be, but we had to redouble our efforts this year

because we expected to be a difficult winter. We know the NHS is

stretched so we are working hard to be as good as we can be. That means

they are looking at winter staffing levels, plans to ask for help from

neighbouring hospitals, and dovetailing help with GP surgeries,

and still having the ability to move up an extra gear, a rehearsed

emergency plan if the NHS had to face a major disease pandemic. You

spend any time in any of our hospitals and you realise the NHS

knows that winter is coming and they are making plans, but you also get a

palpable feeling amongst health workers across the entire system

that they do get fed up of being used as a political football.

Doctors and all health care professionals are frustrated about

the politics that surrounds the NHS in health care. They go to work to

treat patients as best as they can, and the political knock-about does

not help anyone. I find it frustrating when there is a

commentary that suggests the NHS does not planned, when it is

surprised by winter, and wherever that comes from it is hard to take,

knowing how much we do nationally and how much our hard working front

line staff are doing. When the Coalition have recently tried to

open up the NHS to be a more independent body, it is clear the

NHS feel they have had an unhealthy dose of political wrangling between

parties on policy. The NHS is not infallible or making any guarantees,

but they seem confident that they and their patients can survive the

winter. Joining me now from Salford in the

Shadow Health Secretary, Andy Burnham. Tell me this, if you were

health secretary now, you just took over in an emergency election, what

would you do to avoid another winter crisis? I would immediately halt the

closure of NHS walk-in centres. We heard this week that around one in

four walk-in centres are closed so it makes no sense whatsoever for the

Government to allow the continued closure of them. I would put nurses

back on the end of phones and restore an NHS direct style service.

The new 111 service is not in a position to provide help to people

this winter. I think the time has come to rethink how the NHS care is

particularly for older people so I propose the full integration of

health and social care. It cannot make any sense any more to have this

approach where we cut social care and let elderly people drift to

hospitals in greater numbers. We have two rethink it as a whole

service. So you would repeal some of the Tory reforms and move

commissioning to local authorities so the NHS should brace itself for

another major top-down health reorganisation? No, unlike Andrew

Lansley I will work with the organisations ie inherit. He could

work with primary care trusts but he turned it upside down when it needed

stability. I will not do that but I will repeal the health and social

care act because last week we heard that hospitals and health services

cannot get on and make sensible merger collaborations because of

this nonsense now that the NHS is bound by competition law. Let me get

your views on a number of ideas that have been floated either by the

press or the Coalition. We haven't got much time. Do you welcome the

plan to bring back named GPs for over 75s? Yes, but it has got harder

to get the GP appointment under this Government because David Cameron

scrapped the 48-hour guarantee that Tony Blair brought in. He was

challenged in the 2005 election about the difficulty of getting a GP

appointment, and Tony Blair brought in the commitment that people should

be able to get that within 48 hours. That has now been scrapped.

Do you welcome the idea of allowing everyone to choose their own GP

surgery even if it is not in our traditional catchment area? I

proposed that just before the last election, so yes. Do you welcome the

idea of how a practice is being rated being a matter of public

record, and of us knowing how much, at least from the NHS, our GP earns?

Of course, every political party supports transparency in the NHS.

More information for the public of that kind is a good thing. Do you

welcome this plan to make it will form the collect in an NHS hospital

-- make wilful neglect a criminal offence. It is important to say you

can't pick and mix these recommendations, you can't say we

will have that one and not the others. It was a balanced package

that Sir Robert Francis put forward. My message is that it must be

permitted in full. If we are to learn the lessons, the whole package

must be addressed, and that includes safe staffing levels across the NHS.

Staff have a responsible to two patients at the government

People forget that when it came in, there was a shortage of GPs. Some

people but lack the contract helped that. What I would say is that this

myth that the government has built all year that the 2004 GP contract

is responsible for the ANC crisis is eight spin of the worst kind. --

A You would we do that contract now? It was redone in our time in

government and changed to make it better government -- value for

money. Not so great if you cannot get 24-hour access to your practice.

I agree with that, but we brought in evening and weekend opening for

GPs, another thing that is gone into reverse under Mr Cameron. It is

harder to get a GP appointment under him and that is one reason why it

A are under pressure. Two things that aren't on dealer direct sphere

of your portfolio, what do you make of the government's review into

intimidator eat tactics used by unions? If there has been

intimidation, it is unacceptable and it should apply to unions as well as

to employees. Was unite wrong to turn up at that manager 's house? I

don't know the details of that. Presumably, the review will look

into it. I need reassurance that this is not a political call by Mr

Cameron designed to report here the election. We will see how it

develops. Are you sponsored by Unite? No. Do you get any money from

unite all for yourself or for your constituency office? No. It seems

most others seem to be getting something from Unite, it seems odd

that you don't get anything, I will put in a word with Len McCluskey.

What I think is the scandal with funding is that to private health

care companies who between them have given ?1.5 million in donations to

the Tory parties have won ?1.5 billion in NHS contracts since the

last election, I wonder why don't spend as much time talking about

that as you do on trade union funding. We are happy to talk about

that as well do you know. Briefly and finally, we see some -- from

some e-mails that Mr Miliband's closest advisers regard Mr Ed Balls

as a bit of a nightmare, quote, do you think there is a nightmare? No,

I don't. He is a very good friend and I cannot believe, to be honest,

that you are talking about those e-mails on a political programme, my

goodness, you are busy scraping the barrel today. I had been on the

front line for 20 years, I cannot under the front bench and indeed the

wider party be as united as it is today, that is a great credit to Ed

Miliband and Ed Balls. We are a united team. It was worth spending a

few seconds just to establish that you are not having nightmares, we

wouldn't want the Shadow Health Secretary to have them. It has just

gone 11:30am, you are watching Sunday Politics.

Good morning and welcome to Sunday Politics Scotland. Coming up on the

programme: Experts from across the UK are gathering here in Edinburgh

at the Royal College of Physicians to discuss the problem, we will look

at the answer. They've called for an end to

patient's being farmed out to the wrong wards and for the NHS to be

fully operational seven days a week. We'll put that to the Health

Secretary Alex Neil. And from Cameron wearing a condom to

Salmond with his saltire, the wit and lampooning of political figures

over the centuries. A group of medical experts is this

morning calling for an end to the practice of boarding in the NHS,

that's when patients are farmed out to wards inappropriate for their

care when hospitals are busy. Research indicates being treated in

the wrong ward makes you more likely to die. At a time when NHS services

are facing increasing pressure, the specialists are calling for

clinicians and support staff to extend seven-day working. Here's

Andrew Kerr. It is coming up to that time of year, when the pressure on

the NHS. The Scottish government admitted

that they need to improve norovirus and flew at eight indeed

departments. Doctors say they are now experiencing winter pressure all

year around. The Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh is

concerned. They say 124% bed occupancy in Fife was reported and

101% in Lothian. A symptom of this overcapacity is boarding, patients

being farmed out to ward inappropriate for their care.

Research shows that patients are looked after in the wrong department

are at a greater risk of dying. Patients who are boarded, they have

significantly increased length of stay, risk of readmission and

mortality at 30 days compared to patients who aren't boarded. It is a

major problem. Experts have been gathering in Edinburgh to try to

work out how to solve it. Why our hospitals so busy? Increasing

numbers of elderly people need treatment and patients have high

expectations. Doctors are more cautious and patients are be sent

for more tests. The number of beds has been cut to treat more people in

the community. The debate and discussions are going on here at the

Royal College of Physicians in Edinburgh. It can be very stressful

for a patient being in a busy hospital, but it can be very shy

school for the staff, too. As a numbers game down, so did staff

numbers. The Royal College of Nursing says that 1800 nursing posts

were lost in the three years until last Christmas. This is now being

reversed. There has been a number of workforce cuts. That led to us and

producing the number of students in training. We then found ourselves

having to put more beds into the system and we need to now find more

qualified nurses. Unfortunately, this boom and bust approach that our

members talk about is not good for morale or for when you are trying to

find the right numbers of qualified nurses. Scottish Labour picked up on

the starting point at First Minister's questions. We have seen a

number of things being exposed, for example, a 62% in the -- city could

increase in the use of... The Conservatives say why not try to

produce the rush to the front door. It will require us to have a more

responsible attitude to avoidable conditions to, like addictions or

obesity and how do we combine a need to provide a service information to

that without necessarily referring everyone to a hospital? The experts

recommend sweeping reforms to end boarding. They're calling for an

extension to seven-day working and for patients to be carefully

monitored during their stay. We are very much looking at how you can

take patients from the community through the hospital and back into

the community with the smallest chance of having to be really

admitted. If we can that, appropriately across the health

boards, then we are looking at the most appropriate system for these

patients. Health Secretary is now looking -- considering all of the

comments to try to ensure that patients are treated quickly and end

up in the right place in hospital. Joining me now in the studio is the

Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing, Alex Neil. Why does it

happen? It is about the flow of patients through the hospital. The

flow of patients is one of the crucial challenges in our system. It

has not received the same attention previously when you had such a high

rate of hospitalisation for dealing with all sorts of problems. Now

there is much more focus on the flow of patients. For example, sometimes

you have patients going into medical wards that should be in surgical

wards and vice versa. We set up this study because we suspected that it

was having a damaging impact on patient health outcomes and also

because we wanted to manage the flow of patients better which is why we

have the recommendations that we are delighted with. Your own figures

suggest that those who are in this position are more likely to die,

that must be worrying for patients. The iMac absolutely. That is why we

are trying to eliminate it altogether, ideally. Were developing

a bed management capacity to. Let me give you an example. One of the

areas of research that we have done in the last year after the problems

we had last winter was looking at the patient flow. What we found out

is that in many wards in hospitals the percentage of patients being

discharged, ready for discharge, clinically ready for discharge, but

only about 6% in some wards were being discharged before lunchtime

with most of them being discharged in the evening. The reason that

those delays were taking place was because the pharmacy services

weren't available, the transport home was not available, what we have

done as part of our is to look at these parts and puts the part in

place. In the incident where it is now closer to 25%. That frees up

their beds for people coming in through unplanned or planned care.

Can you eradicate this practice? I believe we can. What time frame? We

are looking at that. It is one of the priorities and has been a

priority for the last year in improving the management of a bed

capacity in hospitals. We have slightly increase the capacity in

the last year. They are today 400 more beds in the National Health

Service in Scotland than there were 12 months ago. Numbers were reducing

previously. We had the same situation with nurse numbers. Do you

accept the point that was being made in that film that there is a boom

and bust element? That is why we have introduced a mandatory to that

every health board has two planet using the planning tool for planning

nursing staff. -- planning. Let me explain in terms of what happens and

what has happened in terms of staffing. First of all, we have more

qualified nurses and midwives in the national health service than we did

when we came in a number of years ago. There are three reasons why the

number of beds has gone down. This happened under the previous

Administration 's. The rate has gone down significantly and that this

Administration. Number one, you have the transfer from care in hospital

to care in the community. Secondly, you have a much higher incidence now

of day surgery, for example, we do 35,000 cataract operations every

year. The vast bulk of those after nailing a surgery basis. -- done on

hate. It does sound like you have on -- overestimated the benefits of

some of these changes in terms of bed numbers. They did not actually

gets the ratio right. I would not agree with that. There are examples.

Planning ten years ago for the new Victoria in Fife and the new

Edinburgh Royal Infirmary grossly overestimated the decline in the

population and the need for beds. As a result of that, we reinstated bed

capacity significantly in Edinburgh and five. Apart from that, the issue

is not a strategic shortage of beds. The issue is better management of

the bed capacity that we have. Is there still the potential for a

crisis in our hospitals this winter? We heard about the

norovirus, an increase in in the number of flu cases. Could the same

thing happened this year? The norovirus... We had 25 wards closed

on Christmas Eve because of it. We also had a high incidence of

respiratory disease. That led to a major surge in A and one third of

all of the people who went into A were also admitted to hospital. It

could happen this year, but we are much better prepared. I announced an

unscheduled care plan so that, for example compared to last year we

have 400 more beds, we also have a capacity for additional search beds

if they are required. We have recruited more nurses and we have

increased the numbers of the -- A consultants. Over the years we have

been in power, we have doubled the number of A consultants. One of

your ambitions, shared with the Royal College of Physicians, is to

gear up the NHS to be a seven-day week operation. That has

implications of cost, doesn't it? . The reason we are doing it is that

one of the reasons that we have the problem is that is a Fife and others

refer to is that our hospitals are often planned on a five-day working

week basis. The result of that is that towards the end of every week,

there is a major increase in activity and again at the start of

the week instead of an even flow. During the week, people are kept in

hospital unnecessarily over the weekend because the pharmacy

department is not staffed up to provide the pharmacy products that

they need to go home. How much extra will this plan cost? In some ways it

will save money. It cost about ?4600 per week to keep somebody in N

hospital. If you multiply the number of times we are unnecessarily

detaining people in hospital over the weekend, if we don't do that it

will save a significant amount of money. But you will have to pay

staff more. We are sitting down with staff to work out about better

management of the resorts, rather than just putting more people in. It

is about better management and safety management. If you look at

the contract, doctors don't have too formed nonemergency work at 8pm and

at the weekends. If you are asking them to do that, they will rightly

expect some recompense. A lot of people are already on call. They are

being paid to be on call at home. I think it is better and they think it

is better that they are paid to come in and do work in the hospital. It

is about a different way of working. We'll sits down with all of the

people, we will do it by negotiation and consensus. We will not impose

it. The biggest rate two out of -- out of hours is the pension reform.

We have a real problem amongst GPs. Many of them are telling me that

because of the daft reforms that have been introduced to the pension

scheme by the UK government, many feel they are being forced to retire

early and many feel that it is not worth their while doing out of hours

because of the disincentive of the pension scheme. But they do as they

get overtime. There was a report last week that in a four-year

period, ?40 million was spent in less than four years on overtime

payments for consultants in hospitals. Out of a budget of ?12

billion, that is a reasonable figure. I don't know any modern

industry that does not use an element of overtime to manage the

flow and to manage when you get spikes in the flow of patients, ?10

million in the great scheme of things is... It leads to better

patient care. Some consultants are taking an extra ?150,000 because of

the triple time. These contracts were negotiated in 2004. We have

inherited the contracts. I would like to sit down and have already

started the process of sitting down with the GPs to make sure that we

have people working as much as they possibly can and at weekends and in

the evenings as well and during the day, manage the workflow. On the one

hand, better resorts, on the one hand, a better flow of patients

through the system and on the other hand, we don't have overload and

overwork. Another story in the newspapers today, saying you are

looking at whether all not those who wilfully neglect patients might face

jail terms, a move being introduced by the health department for those

who work in the NHS in England. What do you think of that? We already

have a law that says that, as far as full report patients are concerned.

We will consider whether we need to extend that to cover everybody. --

vulnerable patients. First that would only apply in an extreme

circumstance. Second, legislation to deal with something that has already

happened, as that legislation would be, is not the answer. Is is because

it was brought in after mid Staffordshire. Yes but we should be

under no illusion that it is a substitute for quality care. We have

had a safety programme over the last five years and the professor who

drew up many of these proposals for David Cameron, and who is an adviser

to President Obama, he describes the Scottish health service as the

safest in the world. What is your own personal view on this subject?

Is there a need for legislation and would it ultimately protect the

vulnerable? There is sense in extending the legislation we already

have for everybody so that in these extreme cases, if it did happen in

Scotland, we could do the necessary. But we need to look at

the implications but I am certainly minded to introduce that

legislation. So extending it right across the NHS? Yes. Thank you.

Politics is a serious business but there are people employed to make

sure politicians do not take themselves too seriously. Satirical

cartoonists can be found poking fun at those in charge from the pages of

many newspapers. The practice goes back centuries. Two exhibitions are

being held in Aberdeen looking at two of the greatest cartoonists of

all time. It is an art form that few

politicians have escaped from. Those at the top know nothing is beyond

the tip of the satirical cartoonist's pencil. But it can be

damaging, especially for egos. That has been the case for a long time.

David Lowes' repeated caricatures of Hitler for the Evening Standard work

not popular in Berlin. Hitler found it humiliating. He complained about

it to British politicians at the time. He tried to get them banned as

well. This resulted in David Lowe being put on the Gestapo death list.

The idea of satirical cartoons goes back centuries. Historians argue

this was its heyday, with William Hogarth and Garth Cruickshank among

the key figures. Nowadays, the newspapers provide a mass market for

cartoonist, but in the 17th century, it would have been the shop window

of the local printers that would have done the same thing. People

would have congregated around them in large numbers to see the latest

images and have a good early laugh. Electoral corruption provides the

focus for this 18th century Hogarth piece and it is awash with detail.

Must -- it is incredibly detailed. Lots of little details. Even today

there is no escape, despite the decline in newspaper sales and the

prevalence of 24 avenues. The cartoonists' acid in lives on,

poking fun at politics being a past time we are unlikely to tire of.

I am joined by award-winning cartoonist Steve Bell. What would

you say the lasting influence of those early cartoons is? As well as

the great pictures they produce, there is the attitude which

underlies it under which goes back really to me the late 18th century,

when satire got really rude. I am thinking of Gilroy in particular,

who was a supremely political cartoonist. Probably the first real

satirical political cartoonist. He creates figures which we now

remember more through their caricatures and through the real

images. People like William Pitt, George III, George IV. We remember

them or us caricatures than as official images. And these images

that influenced your own work, or was it more contemporary cartoons

when he first started? Certainly, it is this sort of stuff is in your

much green, but the bubbly I am more influenced directly by

contemporaries. I was probably brought up on the Beano, so I was

more influenced by that than anything else. I do strip cartoons.

That is what I love to do. But the more I found out about these guys,

like Cruickshank and Hogarth, the more I marvelled at what they did.

Especially acres of Gilroy, what he got away with at the time. There was

no freedom of the press at the time. He got away with this