BBC Scotland find something they think is bad amongst mostly good news.
Cancellations for capacity reasons are the only data telling you about performance and resources. Since June 2020, NHS Scotland has been staffed and equipped to delivered 97% to 98% of operations on time. That is remarkable, impressive.
Cancellations by patients are not evidence of any weakness in the system. Indeed, they may be the result of wise decisions. They increased in March 2022 but, contrary to the BBC report, by less than half of 1 percent, a statistically insignificant number.
The real news and the news for years, is NHS Scotland’s awesome performance.
Talking-up Scotland 
And it seems that it’s not even possible to make a comparison with NHS England – conveniently for the Scottish Tories!
According to the House of Commons Library (on 15 Feb, 2022) reporting on NHS England we learn this:
‘Data currently not being collected due to COVID-19:
‘Some data collections that were previously included in this publication were suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic. These include:
• Delayed transfers of care
• Cancelled elective operations
• Cancelled urgent operations
• Critical care capacity
• Mixed-sex accommodation breaches.’
See https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7281/CBP-7281.pdf
According to NH England: ‘Quarterly Monitoring of Cancelled Operations (QMCO) to restart from the collection of Quarter 3 2021/22 data.’
In the BBC Scotland online article discussed above, the journalist is working very hard and with great ‘skill’ – well practiced of course – to contrive negative framing.
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