The crisis with no context splattered across ‘our’ MSM.
NHS Scotland is under pressure. The staff are pushed. None can deny these facts but, a national newspaper, thinking itself ‘quality’ and serving the needs of its readers to know what is happening in their world, must offer context to the dramatic personalisation used to draw readers in.
First-year BA Journalism students are marked down for a lack of context in their writing yet experienced, well-paid writers abandon the notion because it dampens down the crises they lust for.
The Scotsman report above is based on one or two cases and anecdotes from trade union reps presented as expert researchers.
Context? Percentages? 4 Nations?
Here’s some:
The above graphic has been everywhere in social media so I can’t see who to credit but I’ll happily add it if I hear.
Talking-up Scotland 
It’s simply the Hootsman catching up with HMS James Cook’s ludicrous “A&E patients enduring ‘inhumane’ conditions” piece.
Yet one of the oddballs of what appears to be a propaganda campaign is the report it is based on, published January 2022, so why the hoohah now ? https://emj.bmj.com/content/emermed/39/3/168.full.pdf
Reading the Abstract you find this is based on stats in England between April 2016 and March 2018.
I greatly suspect London are attempting to bury news of continuing excess deaths by passing the buck to A&E waiting times, rather than admit they’ve screwed up badly in deliberately defunding all to do with the NHS.
“Long Covid” is now widely accepted as a potential side-effect long after Covid exposure. Quite what other effects there are beyond “temporary” debilitation are less well understood, but there are many voicing concerns over continuing excess deaths.
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On 8 December 2022, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) commented on the latest (for November 2022) Emergency Department performance figures for NHS England:
– 37,837 patients were delayed for 12-hours or more FROM DECISION TO ADMIT TO ADMISSION (DTA) – ALL these patients would have spent additional time (unpublished) between arrival at A&E and the decision to admit being made!
– this was NHS England’s second highest number of 12-hour waits on record. IT IS 255% HIGHER THAN THE SAME MONTH LAST YEAR, NOVEMBER 2021, AND IT IS 3,303% HIGHER THAN NOVEMBER 2019.
The RCEM also noted that the four-hour performance at major Emergency Departments in England in November 2022 was 54.5%, the WORST PERFORMANCE ON RECORD.
Source: https://rcem.ac.uk/difficulties-in-discharging-patients-driving-long-waits-in-emergency-departments/
Should it be a surprise that the Tory Secretary of State for Health and Social Care presiding over this state of affairs is spared the sustained, personalised political attacks from Baillie/Gulhane-type scalp hunters that are commonplace in Scotland?
After all, it’s only the Tory government in Westminster that for over a decade has wielded ALL fiscal and monetary powers necessary to determine the level of resourcing of health and social care services in England directly and indirectly across the rUK.
Perhaps there is an additional element in Scotland which results in a more sustained, intense and concerted politicisation of the NHS by the corporate media and opposition parties here. Whatever might that extra factor be?
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Also in the Scotsman today –
“The Scottish Government highlighted that in Scotland, the rate of delayed discharge for acute locations is around 17 per 100,000 population. In England, the figure equates to 24 per 100,000 population, which is proportionately about 41 per cent higher than Scotland.”
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