SCOTTISH society is getting safer.

 

Less people are experiencing criminal activity and crime itself, is at a recorded, 40 year, low.

House fires and fire deaths, are also at record lows.

It is therefore clear that the primary activity of our fire and rescue services and the overall activity of our police officers, is at the lowest rate, it has ever been.

The first recorded activities of dedicated, fire prevention campaigns, arrived in the early 1970s.

Similarly, police crime prevention campaigns have been refined and developed over the last 40 years.

We have become very sophisticated at prevention, education and partnership working and a large part of this huge reduction, must be attributed to the outstanding work done by so many staff, over such a long period of time.

Yet it is clear that society itself, is changing, it is becoming safer, more vigilant and perhaps less tolerant and permissive, of risk.

Products are safe and the risks associated with using them have been dramatically reduced.

Our homes are generally non combustible, better designed and more fire resistant. Our contents are better protected than ever and of course most of our homes are deliberately designed to be inherently more secure.

Many of our buildings are now protected by smoke detection systems and sprinklers. Similarly, many homes are protected by security systems and our urban environment screened by CCTV.

There is little sign that this long-term downward trajectory of activity, for both the police and fire services, is going to rise in the future.

Indeed, it is likely to continue to decline further posing something of a dilemma for the future direction and purpose of both services.

There will always be a need for a properly trained and equipped, fire and rescue service. Similar principles apply to our Police service.

Both services require resourcing, to ensure that they remain strong, vibrant and healthy.

But at what level should they continue to be resourced when their activity is perhaps only half of what it had been a few decades ago, and perhaps will be further halved, in the next decade?

The last thing Scotland needs are two standing armies, waiting around for something to happen.

I have said before that it would be firmly in the public interest, for our fire services to merge entirely with the ambulance service.

This would save both lives, and cost.

Similarly, in the police service, while our streets and homes are definitely becoming safer it is clear that future priorities must focus upon tackling Internet based crime. Whether it be fraud, aggression and bullying or the online abuse of children, a subject upon which Government announced new measures this week, the time has surely arrived where both agencies now require to reflect on the range and nature of services they provide and create some fresh thinking.

Both services do an outstanding job and provide a highly effective insurance policy for our society, but at what cost?

It strikes me that the insurance policy is coming up for renewal and it will be for the Boards, who exercise stewardship over these two, newly nationalised services to determine a sustainable and affordable strategy going forward.

We look forward to hearing their thoughts on these issues, together with the thoughts of the politicians who employ them.

This week, NHS Lanarkshire decided to stop referring patients for homoeopathy treatment.

In previous years some 200 patients per year were referred by the authority to the Glasgow Centre for Integrated Care formerly known as the Glasgow Homoeopathic Hospital.

Homoeopathy has been a contentious treatment for many years and the majority of medical research reports on the subject, say it is of little or no clinical benefit.

I therefore have little disagreement with the NHS Lanarkshire decision, in principle. Where I do have an issue is in the consultation process they engaged in to establish their own patients views of the treatment.

When asked their opinion 88% of patients said that the treatment had given benefits and made them feel better.

Almost 9/10 patients giving the treatment the thumbs up, doesn't this exercise in public consultation mean that the public would wish to keep the treatment.

NHS Lanarkshire and all government agencies need to dispense with this meaningless culture of consultation.

It is an expensive and largely pointless exercise, which generally ignores the public's view and seeks merely to obtain political cover for decisions which have already been taken.

Having conducted my own consultation exercise, in my opinion it is pointless.

Stop it.