Scots NHS great

Contrary to Keith Howell’s claims, NHS Scotland has not been mismanaged by the SNP (Letters, 17 July). Despite increasing demands and expectations, plus having to work within a Uk-imposed austerity budget, NHS Scotland patient satisfaction is at its highest level on record.

The number of nurses, doctors and dentists working in Scotland’s NHS has increased under the SNP with staffing at record high levels. Scotland’s core A&E performance has remained better than elsewhere in the UK for the last 26 months of published data and Scotland has the highest number of GPS per head of populationintheuk,together with a new incentive to take up posts in hard-to-fill locations in remote and rural areas.

The quality of care and personalised approach in Scotland were highlighted in a Nuffield Trust report earlier this month, Learning from Scotland’s NHS, which set out the lessons that the NHS in other parts of the UK can learn from Scotland.

Also, education is not being “dumbed down” as claimed by Allan Sutherland (Letters, 17 July) as a record 93.3 per cent of school leavers in Scotland are going into a job, training or continuing education and the number of Higher passes is at an all-time high, so it is an insult to teachers and pupils to suggest standards are falling. There is increased specialisation, but unless TV and digital platforms start glamourising engineering and manufacturing industries, more pupils will go for so called “softer options” like psychology or media studies instead.

However, to those who say standards have declined, I would suggest they download the latest exam papers from the SQA website and tackle the challenging questions.

FRASER GRANT Warrender Park Road, Edinburgh