In their 770 word report Scottish NHS strikes on hold while pay offer negotiated BBC Scotland finds no reason to mention the Scottish First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon’s role in averting once more a damaging NHS strike.
Note that no health service strikes have taken place in Scotland, in contrast with several including nurses and ambulance staff, in England& Wales. The First Minister and the Health Secretary have repeatedly met with unions.
How do I know this? The Herald has not reported it as yet.
Well, the Wyndham and Attleborough Mercury seems sure today:
The Royal College of Nursing Scotland has paused a formal announcement of strike action following further talks with the Scottish Government.
Talks took place on Friday January 13 with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and RCN general secretary and chief executive, Pat Cullen.
https://www.wymondhamandattleboroughmercury.co.uk/news/national/23250516.royal-college-nursing-scotland-announces-pause-strike-action/
They wouldn’t make that up would they?
Talking-up Scotland 
There have been reports in the Pressabout the Scottish Gov trying to cone to agreement with the nurses averting strike action, but not in the Herald.
People’s are getting appointments with the Doctors, clinic appointments and operations. They might just have to wait a bit longer, for manageable conditions. If there are underlying conditions there is still the threat of covid or other viruses killing people.
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Ah but ….. huvvin tae go tae Ukraine tae get an appointment is pure bad! That’s whit that Mr Cauld Ham Bone tellt us an he widnae lie wid he?
Therr’s nae bus frae Maryhill Road that goes to Ukraine….. jist wan that goes tae the QEUH an another frae Garscube Road that goes tae Stobhill. Ah kin get them ootside the new Woodside Health Centre, when I am gaun tae mah GP or fur other services like flue and covid jags and blood tests an regular check-ups fur the grandweans.
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Reblogged this on Patzi Winter.
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Did you see Nikla being interviewed on the BBC, before or after the many, many interviews (repeated hourly) with Rick!?
No, neither did I.
The media has been weaponised against Sturgeon since the middle of the pandemic, when polling showed how popular she was, north and south of the border.
Character assassination and name-association to perceived failures are now commonplace in the “British” media and commentariat, and in a way not repeated with any other UK leader.
Danger—MI5 at work!
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I have not looked but I wonder if DRoss and BBC will be commenting and congratulating on this good news story.
https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/inverness/5270575/vital-services-to-treat-heart-conditions-now-available-24-7-at-raigmore-hospital/
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Could it be that the Wyndham and Attleborough Mercury have actual journalists and a healthy circulation whereas the Herald is mainly focused on the Rest and Be Thankful, Ferries, Five things we learned from the last Rangers game, Everything that Sturgeon / SNP does is very bad and has a plunging circulation.
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A pedant writes: The place near Norwich is actually spelled ‘WYMONDHAM”, but it is pronounced by the locals as “Windam”.
I have actually been there. It is pretty small, but the train from Norwich stops there. It has a ruined abbey, but the main point of interest – for film buffs, at least – is that the internal scenes of the film “Brief `Encounter” were actually shot in the waiting room at the station, which has been preserved as it was when the film was shot in 1945. The outdoor scenes were shot at Carnforth station near Lancaster. It, too, looks pretty much as it did in 1945,
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Just checked the online Herald at 13.45 and it is not on there either yet the announcement was made yesterday giving plenty of time to put it into the paper and online.
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I’m afraid that we all know why.
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The Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) has just (13 January) issued a press statement in response to the statistics published earlier in the week on NHS England’s A&E waiting times performance.
Before providing a summary, it’s worth highlighting a few things first:
(i) I have found no record of this latest RCEM statement being referred to anywhere by the BBC: the RCEM is commonly quoted by BBC Scotland;
(ii) in its statement, the RCEM – as it always has – focused on the performance of England’s major (i.e. Type 1) emergency departments. Its statements on NI, Scotland and Wales always and only make reference to the equivalents of Type 1 departments;
(iii) the BBC’s coverage of the December 2022 stats for NHS England’s A&E used the 4-hour waiting time performance for ALL emergency departments: as best as I can ascertain, it never mentioned the much worse performance of major (Type 1) departments. (It’s fair to say the BBC has not been alone in this!)
Given the very substantial worsening of the 4-hour wait statistic for Type 1s, whilst the RCEM refers to a 49.6% statistic (Type 1s only), the BBC used a 65% statistic (for all departments, including those treating minor injuries). This editorial decision by the BBC runs counter to its practice in Scotland where it quotes statistics for the major A&E departments only and always – and thus always the poorer performance! This is very far from the first time this difference in BBC practice has been in evidence: it’s commonplace!
To the RCEM’s press statement: on 12 January the RCEM website had this headline referring to the December performance of NHS England: ‘How far does Emergency Department performance need to fall for political leaders to take meaningful action?’
Responding to the NHS England figures for December 2022, Dr Adrian Boyle, President of the RCEM said (with my emphasis):
“December’s performance figures are truly shocking, MORE THAN 50% OF ALL PATIENTS FACING WAITS OVER FOUR-HOURS and nearly 55,000 patients facing 12-hour waits from the decision to admit.”
And because in England, unlike in NI, Scotland and Wales, the clock that measures 12 hour waits STARTS ONLY WHEN A DECISION TO ADMIT IS MADE, NOT FROM THE TIME OF ARRIVAL AT A&E, the RCEM President felt obliged to add:
“12-HOUR WAITS FROM DECISION TO ADMIT OBFUSCATE THE TRUTH AND ARE ONLY THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG, WE KNOW THE REALITY IS FAR WORSE. We know that the scale of long-waiting times for Emergency Care is causing harm to patients and is associated with patient deaths.”
The RCEM statement goes on: “This crisis was foreseeable. The target of seeing 95% of patients within four-hours at Type 1 Emergency Departments has NOT BEEN MET SINCE JUNE 2013. A DECADE OF UNDERFUNDING, UNDER-RESOURCING, AND A FAILURE TO FULFIL WORKFORCE PLEDGES OR COMMIT TO LONG-TERM WORKFORCE PLANNING that tackled the retention crisis has led us to A BROKEN SYSTEM THAT DOES NOT PERFORM ITS CENTRAL FUNCTION.
And added: “… crucially, WE NEED HONEST LANGUAGE ABOUT THE DEPTH OF THIS CRISIS. We have no more time for inaction and unfulfilled promises.”
The following are among the December 2022 A&E performance figures for England that prompted the above damning remarks from the RCEM:
a) 54,532 patients were delayed for 12-hours or more from decision to admit (DTA) to admission
– this is the highest number of 12-hour waits on record
– this is 10,740 more than the second highest figure on record, October 2022
– December 2022’s figure is a 320% higher than December 2021 and 2,223% higher than December 2019
– there have now been 347,703 12-hour DTA stays recorded so far in 2022
On on the best known benchmark:
b) the four-hour performance at MAJOR (i.e. Type 1) Emergency Departments was 49.6%
– this is the worst four-hour performance on record
– this is a 4.9 PERCENTAGE POINT DECREASE (worsening) FROM THE PREVIOUS MONTH
– this is an 11.6 percentage point decrease from December 2021 (61.2%).
For perspective:
– in December 2022, the equivalent statistic reported weekly for the 4-hour performance in NHS Scotland ranged between 55.1% and 63.3% (compared to the 49.9% in December in England);
– in December 2021, the equivalent statistic reported weekly in NHS Scotland ranged between 69.6% and 80.2% (compared to the 61.2% in December 2021 in England).
What a remarkable public service from the BBC to shield its audiences in England from the true state of their A&E! And what a remarkable service from the BBC to deprive its audiences in Scotland and England of context and of the perspective that would come if only it reported like-for-like comparisons!
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My daughter’s partner had to attend A&E at Lewisham University Hospital in London recently. He was discharged in just under 4 hours. So, on the basis of this anecdote, the BBC can announce that 100% of a sample was treated within the 4 hour target. Aren’t the Tories wonderful??????
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Some important context and perspective that readers/viewers will never get from the corporate media or the BBC in Scotland. This is from the Health Foundation – an ‘independent charity committed to bringing about better health and health care for people in the UK’ and funded by endowments – responding to the latest performance statistics for NHS England (with my emphasis):
‘Today’s data show the NHS is facing an emergency but THE ROOTS OF THIS LIE IN POLITICAL CHOICES MADE OVER THE LAST DECADE, NOT THE COLD WEATHER OR SEASONAL FLU.
‘54,532 patients spent more than 12 hours in A&E waiting for a hospital bed in December, taking the total for the year to 347,707 – OVER FOUR TIMES AS MANY 12 HOUR TROLLEY WAITS AS IN THE PREVIOUS TEN YEARS PUT TOGETHER.
‘WAITS FOR CANCER TREATMENT REACHED NEW HIGHS in 2022, while THE WAITING LIST FOR ROUTINE OPERATIONS IS 7.2 MILLION. Behind these numbers are patients left in pain, people enduring unnecessary suffering and, in some cases, lives tragically lost.
‘There are no quick fixes – if the Prime Minister wants to live up to his promise to cut waiting lists without tricks or ambiguity, THE FIRST STEP IS, TO BE HONEST WITH THE PUBLIC ABOUT THE SCALE OF THE CRISIS and what it will take to get the NHS back on track. THE PRESSURES ON THE NHS RESULT FROM A DECADE OF UNDERINVESTMENT IN THE NHS AND OTHER PUBLIC SERVICES, A FAILURE TO ADDRESS CHRONIC STAFF SHORTAGES, RAIDING CAPITAL BUDGETS AND THE LONGSTANDING NEGLECT OF ADULT SOCIAL CARE.’
See https://www.health.org.uk/news-and-comment/news/pressures-on-the-nhs-result-of-political-choices-not-the-cold-weather-or-seasonal-flu
(The Health Foundation urges on the Tory government ‘BE HONEST WITH THE PUBLIC ABOUT THE SCALE OF THE CRISIS’ in England (and yes, in Wales too) – perhaps someone should tell Scotland’s ministerial scalp hunters, Dr Gulhane and Ms Baillie!)
Returning to the Health Foundation’s analysis: (i) which political party has been in power in England for the last decade; (ii) which party in government has used its unfettered fiscal and monetary powers to determine, to set the level of resources for health and social care in England; (iii) which government decides on the financial resources to be transferred to NI, Scotland and Wales based on its judgment of resource requirements in England?
Just one party, just one governing party over more than a decade – the Tory Party in Westminster!
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This is a good blog about England’s NHS.
https://calderdaleandkirklees999callforthenhs.wordpress.com/
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