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Climber stands after 1,000ft fall

A Royal Navy Sea King helicopter from HMS Gannet in Prestwick, Ayrshire

Rescuers, from a helicopter like this one, say he was lucky to be alive

A climber who fell 1,000ft (305m) down a mountain and survived was found by his rescuers standing up reading a map.

The 35-year-old lost his footing at the summit of Sgurr Choinnich Mor near Ben Nevis in the Highlands and plummeted down the near-vertical eastern slope.

Lt Tim Barker, from the helicopter rescue crew, said: “It seemed impossible… he must have literally glanced off the outcrops as he fell.”

He added that the climber was shaking from “extreme emotional shock”.

Lt Barker, the Royal Navy’s Sea King helicopter crew’s observer, said: “We began to hover-taxi down the slope and spotted a man at the bottom, standing up.

“We honestly thought it couldn’t have been him, as he was on his feet, reading a map. Above him was a series of three high craggy outcrops.

“It’s hard to believe that someone could have fallen that distance on that terrain and been able to stand up”

Lt Tim Barker Royal Navy rescuer

“It seemed impossible. So we retraced our path back up the mountain and, sure enough, there were bits of his kit in a vertical line all the way up where he had obviously lost them during the fall.

“It was quite incredible. He must have literally glanced off the outcrops as he fell, almost flying.”

The helicopter, from HMS Gannet in Prestwick, Ayrshire, was already airborne on a training exercise when it was scrambled to the scene just after 1430 GMT.

A paramedic was winched down to check the climber over. He appeared unscathed aside from some superficial cuts and bruises and a minor chest injury.

Map showing Sgurr Choinnich Mor, a mountain near Ben Nevis in Scotland

Lt Barker added: “He is lucky to be alive. It’s hard to believe that someone could have fallen that distance on that terrain and been able to stand up at the end of it, let alone chat to us in the helicopter on the way to the hospital.

“Really an amazing result – I have to say, when we got the call and realised the details of where he’d fallen, we did expect to arrive on scene to find the worst-case scenario.”

The climber, from Glasgow, was one of a group of 24 who had reached the summit when the accident happened.

He is being treated at Southern General Hospital in the city.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Rioters attack PSNI during alert

Police said the bomb hoax was an effort to draw officers into the area.

Balls questions King’s cuts view

Ed Balls said Britain needed a plan which put jobs and growth first

Shadow chancellor Ed Balls has accused George Osborne of being in denial about the risks to jobs and growth from his plan to cut the deficit.

Writing in the Independent on Sunday, Mr Balls said the chancellor’s plan to eliminate the deficit by 2015 was “irresponsible and dangerous”.

It comes after figures revealed a surprise contraction of the UK economy.

Mr Osborne has told the BBC there would be “financial turmoil” if he abandoned his cuts and tax rises.

Their ongoing battle over economic policies intensified on Tuesday, when the latest GDP figures showed a shock 0.5% contraction in the economy in the final three months of 2010.

Forecasts had been for growth of between 0.2% and 0.6% but ministers blamed the negative figures on the snow and exceptionally cold weather in December.

In his article in the Independent on the Sunday, Mr Balls contrasted the growth figures in the US with the “shocking” figures in the UK.

“The US Treasury, by combining sustained and sensible stimulus for an economy still in recovery with a measured and steady pace of deficit reduction, has seen confidence grow and consumer spending rising,” he said.

He said the US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner had told the World Economic Forum in Davos this week that rapid and drastic spending cuts were “not the sensible way” to cut national deficits.

“There is an economically more credible alternative to what this Conservative-led government is doing.”

Ed Balls Shadow chancellorTurmoil if cuts scrapped: Osborne

He also pointed to the warning issued by the famous investment fund manager George Soros in Davos that the UK’s austerity measures could push the country back into recession.

Mr Balls said “simply slamming on the brakes” with tax hikes and spending cuts was not a “credible economic policy”.

“That is why here in Britain we need to re-think,” he wrote. “There is an economically more credible alternative to what this Conservative-led government is doing.

“We need a plan that puts jobs and growth first.”

Mr Balls accused the chancellor of being being complacent and “in denial” about the risks to jobs and growth of the squeeze on family budgets and public services.

“There is no historical precedent to support his projections and he has no Plan B if the scale and pace of his deficit-cutting prove to go too far and too fast.”

Labour’s plan – which Mr Balls had initially criticised as too aggressive – is to halve the deficit within four years.

In an interview on the BBC Politics Show, Mr Osborne insisted he had to take tough decisions to sort out the “enormously tricky situation” he had inherited and provide a platform for sustainable growth.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley on The Andrew Marr Show

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley plays down the risks of his changes to the NHS

Related stories

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has admitted there is “risk” involved in his English NHS shake-up but says there is a greater risk from doing nothing.

He said spending was set to rise, but the Labour years had shown that spending more money “isn’t the answer”.

“We don’t get the results we should compared with other European countries; if we did we would save thousands of lives,” he told the Andrew Marr Show.

Health unions have denounced the plans due to be debated by MPs on Monday.

The Health and Social Care Bill, published earlier this month, will allow GPs to get control of most of the NHS budget from 2013 – working in consortiums and taking on responsibility for “buying in” the bulk of hospital and community services for their patients.

In the process, all 151 primary care trusts and strategic health authorities will be disbanded.

In the lead up to the bill’s publication, fears were voiced that hospitals could go bust as the plans include opening up the NHS to “any willing provider”.

Critics have also questioned whether GPs have the experience and skills to handle such huge budgets – they will have control of about 80% of the NHS budget.

The timing has also been questioned, as the health service is being asked to save money in coming years.

Speaking to the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, Mr Lansley said: “I didn’t say there wasn’t risk. Of course there’s risk because there’s change.

“But actually if we don’t change, the greater risk is that these problems that we have at the moment that we have to deal with won’t be solved.”

The reforms would result in a redundancy bill of £1bn, he said, but savings would reach £5bn over the course of the parliament.

He said about half of existing Primary Care Trust staff would be employed by the new GP consortiums.

Asked about the speed of the planned changes and the opposition to them, Mr Lansley said the shake-up – not detailed in the coalition agreement – had been developed within a few weeks of them entering government.

He said most patients would not know much about the current system which, he said, requires 50,000 administrators: “How many patients have actually been treated directly by a Primary Care Trust?”

He said that GPs already made most decisions about the care of patients in the community while hospitals “provide most of the secondary care and tertiary care to patients – I’m not interfering with them. I’m giving them greater freedom on both sides of that equation”.

Mr Lansley said he was going to get rid of Labour “rigging” of competition within the health service which had favoured private sector firms.

“They stopped NHS foundation trusts bidding for that capacity. I actually do believe in competition.”

So far, 141 GP consortia, serving more than half of the population of England, have signed up as “pathfinders” to pilot the new arrangements ahead of their planned implementation in 2013.

During exchanges at prime minister’s questions earlier this month, David Cameron was accused of being “arrogant” for going ahead with the moves despite warnings from unions and health experts.

Labour leader Ed Miliband said medical staff had warned of “potentially disastrous” consequences for the health service.

But the prime minister said the government was “reforming the NHS so that we have got the best in Europe”. MPs are set to debate the proposals in detail for the first time from about 1530 GMT on Monday.

The changes were first set out in a white paper published last summer. They apply solely to England – Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have different systems..

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.