Sir, Councillor Alex Rowley’s call for greater transparency around NHS services in Fife and the crisis that may evolve seems a bit rich (Monday’s Courier).
The crisis points he has referred to could be avoided if Mr Rowley’s Labour-led council made sure that the council care services under his provision were to work the seven-day, 24-hour service that is worked in the NHS. This is where the breakdown occurs.
This Labour-led council was elected on the promise that new care homes were to be built for the elderly population of Fife. These buildings have been located in the west of Fife, where the Labour-voting public comes from. This was, obviously, very convenient.
If Mr Rowley and his party had followed the previous administration with regard to the part-privatisation of the council-held elderly residential care homes, then more places for elderly care could have been achieved in other parts of Fife without so much of a strain on the council finances. This would (allow for) the council care home provision that is sorely required in the eastern part of Fife.
In turn, this will help to reduce the pressure that NHS Fife will find themselves under in times of crisis.
Bob Harper. 63a Pittenweem Road, Anstruther.
Aly and Phil see festival finish on a high note
Sir, An inimitable performance by the incomparable Aly Bain and Phil Cunningham in front of an audience of about 300 in Crail Kirk on Saturday the first event of their Scottish 2013 tour rounded off this year’s busy Crail Festival.
By all accounts, it has been a notable success with the range of entertainment greater than hitherto and the quality higher than ever before.
The breadth of the programme of music Piaf, La Boheme, jazz, Joyce Grenfell, Mozart and Aly and Phil was outstanding and the enthusiastic response from good audiences was greatly encouraging.
The festival committee would like to thank the sponsors, indefatigable technical team, helpers, audiences from near and far and The Courier for its helpful coverage and support, which was much appreciated.
Ronald J. Sandford. pp Crail Festival Committee 1 Scott Garden, Kingsbarns.
Antics flag upa problem
Sir, Whenever a Scot achieves an excellent result in sport, business or, indeed, anything at all, Scotland’s First Minister, Alex Salmond, appears, waving a saltire and looking for a good photo opportunity.
With little or no regard for the years spent abroad studying or honing the skills needed to achieve success, Mr Salmond somehow attempts to show that SNP values have been of benefit in the process.
This pretentious and self-seeking behaviour is of little credit to him and is reminiscent of the behaviour of politicians on the European scene, particularly in the 20th century.
A.A. Bullions. Leven.
Extend EU rail safety system
Sir, A rule of thumb among accident investigators is that an event like the Spanish rail crash (which left 79 people dead) has more than one cause and if lessons are to be learned the whole scenario must be studied.
Spain was the first to use the EU’s rail traffic management, which automatically brakes speeding trains, but the system was only installed in part of the Madrid-Ferrol line.
In other areas such as the approach to Santiago de Compostela it is governed by the less sophisticated Spanish safety system ASFA and this had already caused an incident.
On the inaugural 2011 journey, passengers were thrown out of their seats when the train braked violently as the driver belatedly realised this corner was approaching.
After that an alarm was installed in the driver’s cabin and this should have sounded four kilometres before the bend, warning that a speed limit of 80 kilometres per hour was coming up.
This alarm is known to cause communication problems and the police are investigating if it had been disbaled because the driver, Francisco Jose Garzon Amo, was on his mobile phone.
Yet it is already clear that the EU system should be extended to the whole network and that safety alarms must be fool-proof.
Dr John Cameron. 10 Howard Place, St Andrews.
Knowing our own value
Sir, Willie Robertson (Friday’s Letters) writes disparagingly about Scotland’s economy and uses it to attack Alex Salmond and John Swinney.
He asks what constitutes Scotland’s economy other than oil and gas? The list is extensive. There are more than 1,000 companies in the electronics industry, contributing more than half of Scotland’s exports. We produce 28% of Europe’s PCs, and 29% of its notebooks. Our science and engineering skills are world renowned.
Our life sciences contribute not only to our economy but to the wellbeing of future generations. Renewable energy, whilewoefully under-resourced by Westminster, has huge potential. Also, £2 billion comes from agriculture and fisheries and we have a highly successful textile industry, expert in design and innovation. More obviously, there is whisky and tourism. Huge earners. Mr Robertson may be unaware of Scotland’s worth. I can assure him
Westminster is not.
Ken Clark. 335 King Street, Broughty Ferry, Dundee.
Accentuate the positive
Sir, Your correspondent, Willie Robertson, thinks people who want Scottish independence are “sad and deluded”. Does he consider citizens of the 140 or so countries who have won independence since 1945 in the same light? To my knowledge, no newly independent country wants to turn the clock back.
Mr Robertson asks what will drive the economy other than oil. Well, Scotland’s GDP per head is 99% of the UK average, excluding oil and gas.
Food and drink exports have risen by 52% since 2007; tourism is a £5 billion industry and renewables now provides 11,000 jobs. Recently, a league table of world universities placed four Scottish institutions in the top 100 for science. Let’s not talk our country down.
Councillor Bill Duff. 5 MacDiarmid Drive, Hillside, Montrose.
Exhibits to come Flodden back
Sir, As a long-time campaigner, I am delighted to see a sword, dagger and ring reputed to have been owned by King James IV are to be returned, on temporary loan, to the Stirling Smith Museum at the end of August.
Given the fact that this year marks the 500th anniversary of the Battle of Flodden, where King James IV lost his life and from whose corpse the items were allegedly taken, this is indeed extremely timely.
The items, held at the College of Arms in London since 1681, also exhibit the strong significance Flodden has had for subsequent ages across Britain.
Alex Orr. Flat 2, 77 Leamington Terrace, Edinburgh.
NHS in Scotland needs reviewed
Sir, Anyone watching the news in the last few days must be appalled by the state of the NHS in England. How do these findings affect Scotland? They must either be accepted as applying here as much as in England or a similar review must be carried out in this country.
The NHS is mentally ill. It requires therapy, not surgery. Treating the symptoms such as shortages or poor use of staff is not enough. The NHS must change how it thinks.
Everyone will be pleased to know your correspondent, Mr Menzies (Letters, July 22), had a good experience and no one is suggesting the NHS is all bad. This family had a very different experience, however, and there is no doubt there are enormous problems in the attitudes of many staff to their work and patients.
David Petrie. 8 Ruthven Street, Auchterarder.
Two differing definitions
Sir, Alana Trusty claimed to write on behalf of the deaf community when she wrote that they were “outraged at The Courier’s use of the term deaf and dumb to describe a deaf witness” at a trial (Saturday’s Letters). She said it was “shocking that in 2013 a sheriff allowed such offensive terminology to be used in his court”.
She said that “it is a known fact that the word ‘dumb’ now means idiotic, brainless or stupid and it is beyond offensive to refer to deaf people in this way.”
I beg to differ. My dictionary gives dumb as “lacking the power of speech; mute; naturally incapable of speech; …. temporarily unable to speak; devoid of sound”, then “chiefly North American informal stupid”.
We were always taught the use of “dumb” to mean stupid was slang. I am sure neither the sheriff, nor the lawyers, nor The Courier were using the word with the intention of being offensive. If politically correct officials in organisations for the deaf wish to change the meaning of “dumb” from the correct meaning, given above, to its slang use, that’s their affair, but they should not try to impose their interpretation on others.
George K. McMillan. 5 Mount Tabor Avenue, Perth.