Today’s letters to The Courier.
Sir, – The reporting of NHS fraud (July 27) highlights an important issue, but many of the correct facts have been lost in the course of the debate.
Counter Fraud Services is the lead body co-ordinating efforts against fraud in NHS Scotland.
We are committed to reducing fraud and corruption in NHS Scotland and to building and promoting a culture in which staff, patients, contractors and the wider public regard fraud against the NHS as totally unacceptable.
It is misleading to say there were 15,000 ”people subject to fraud investigations”. In fact, we carry out 60,000 routine patient exemption checks each year for fraud or error based on randomly selected claims for free dental treatment, or ophthalmic services.
Patients are contacted at random to provide evidence of their entitlement to free services. We confirm their details are correct and then arrange for recovery of monies for claims made inappropriately.
We also confirm if a mistake has been made. It is wrong to ascribe all of this to fraud in many cases there is genuine error.
In addition, the recent figures quoted relate to exemption-checking only and not to other types of fraud committed against the NHS. Taken as a whole, the Counter Fraud Services work to deter and detect crime which has enabled total savings of £42m since 2000.
Finally, it should be noted that the figure of £110m a year lost to the NHS through fraud is not an estimate. It is simply an illustration of what 1% of the NHS Scotland budget would amount to, given that established research estimates a typical fraud level of between 3% and 8% across both public and private sectors.
Regardless of the precise sums, any monies defrauded from the NHS can impact on patient care and front line services.
That is why we will continue to raise awareness of and investigate any reported fraud throughout the NHS.
Peter MacIntyre.Director,NHS Scotland Counter Fraud Services.
Why not a Tay tunnel?
Sir, – I see that there is a proposal for a new Tay bridge to ease congestion.
Your readers may be interested in the fact that the Norwegians have built over 700km of road tunnels in recent years at a cost of under about £4m per km. For example, a Forth tunnel was costed at around £30 million whereas the bridge chosen is promised at £2,600 million.
Indeed a Tay tunnel was part of the Scottish Tunnel Project a series of Norwegian-style tunnels across the country giving road access to most of the major islands and Kintyre as well as tunnels at North Berwick and the Tay estuary.
Tunnelling technology has progressed by leaps and bounds in recent decades and nobody, either in Holyrood or elsewhere, has suggested any show-stoppers or disputes that the transport gains it would give the whole country would not be likely to produce substantial economic growth.
Hopefully this will persuade the main parties after they have given it sufficient consideration.
Neil Craig.200 Woodlands Road,Glasgow.
All points were considered
Sir, – Ian Hannah and Nigel Kenny ask (Letters, July 27) why the Scottish Government have ”ignored” the results of their consultation on same-sex marriage. They did not. The consultation analysis report makes clear that many different policy points were raised by respondents and all were considered by the Government.
Consultations are not a numbers game; they are not mini-referenda. If they were, the door would be open to any special interest group to veto any government policy simply by arranging for 25,000 people to send in pre-printed postcards opposing the policy.
That is exactly what the Catholic Church did in the case of same-sex marriage. They distributed 200,000 postcards, of which 25,000 were returned.
When those and other campaign postcards and petitions are removed from the count, two-thirds of the Scottish responses to the consultation were in favour of allowing same-sex marriage.
Tim Hopkins.Equality Network,30 Bernard Street,Edinburgh.
Unanswered questions
Sir, – At this time of year your paper almost always carries stories about travelling folk being in sites where they are not wanted and eventually leave them in a rather discouraging state.
It is always quite clear that most local authorities provide proper sites for them.
When I discuss these matters with friends we find we are unable to form any sort of opinion other than to condemn the mess.
Can any of your very helpful readers answer some of the following questions, the answers to which most of us appear far-from-blissfully unaware?
Who pays for the official sites? What benefits do the majority of the travellers put into the economy? Does the cost of their children’s education fall wholly on to the taxpayer? Do the clean-ups and the maintenance of the official sites get paid for by the local authority and the council tax payer? What is the cost of policing this group of society?
I ask all this not from any sense of judgment, but for enough information to at least partly form an opinion.
Robert Lightband,Clepington Court,Dundee.
No effort at all
Sir, – Speaking of the event in (largely) London, your leader writer declared on Thursday July 26: ”It will take a determined effort not to get caught up in the excitement”.
I would just reply: ”No, it takes no effort whatsoever not to get caught up in the largely artificially-generated excitement.”
In fact, given the Korean flags fiasco in a near-empty Hampden, I am more than ever convinced that Twenty-Twelve is not satire, but represents the reality of the Olympics.
Alasdair Maclean.Maryfield,Dundee.
For one show!
Sir, – We are told that £27 million of taxpayers’ money was spent on the Olympic opening ceremony. Cash-strapped NHS bosses must look on with envy and disbelief at this amount of public money being doled out for one ceremony.
Donald MacLeod.49 Woodcroft Avenue,Bridge of Don.