There have now been nurse and ambulance strikes twice in England and Wales.
In December 2022, more than 25,000 healthcare staff in Northern Ireland had a one-day strike. The strike by staff from Unite, Unison and Nipsa members, involved some nurses, ambulance and hospital support staff.
Today physiotherapists in England will strike, with plans for further strikes to include staff from Wales.
There have been no strikes by any health workers in Scotland. Ambulance staff have settled and nurses continue to talk with the Scottish Government.
BBC Scotland, a public service broadcaster with a responsibility to inform us, and our supposedly quality newspapers, have never reminded the Scottish public that strikes in England and Wales do not apply here, leaving the elderly and vulnerable dangerously ill-informed, confused and potentially reluctant to act when they are in danger.
Why is this not happening? The First Minister and the Health Secretary have met regularly and honestly with the health unions to do everything they can to avert the threat to lives that industrial action in the health services can pose.
BBC Scotland, a public service broadcaster with a responsibility to inform us, and our supposedly quality newspapers, have never reminded the Scottish public that the First Minister and the Health Secretary have played this vital role in sharp contrast with the belligerence of the Conservative Government in England and the passivity of the Labour Government in Wales.
Talking-up Scotland 
I blame the ”Levelling up” strategy which denies Scotland the opportunity to have their Health Services disrupted to the same extent as our English masters.
Humza Yousaf must resign over this failure to subject Scottish patients to the same duress as the privileged English !
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£2200 increase from today for staff
February. Backdated to April.
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Lord Rothermere, founder of the Daily Mail was quoted as saying that the job of the Daily Mail was to serve the British people its ‘daily dose of fear’. He had realised that if you make people fearful and uncertain they tend to revert to what they are used to. And, in Rothermere’s day – as now – what they were used to was Tory Government, The Royal Family, the right sort of people in charge (those ‘born to rule). So, when it came to voting the ‘people’ whom Rothermere, like the current Tory Government, held in contempt either failed to vote or voted Tory ‘for fear of something worse’.
It is not that all of the poor, elderly and troubled vote Tory – most know them for the crooks they are – but enough vote Tory to ensure that under the gerrymandered first past the post the Tories are likely to get a majority. There is a core Tory vote who are comfortably off and no matter how loathesome many of them think the Tories are, they will vote Tory because their standard of life will not be threatened.
So BBC Scotland and the Scottish media are trying to stop the swithering NO voters from switching.
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To be fair, I doubt the Welsh government have been “passive” either, that impression is more a side effect of HMS James Cook’s relentless attempts to show SG in panic over THEIR budgets…
I cannot recall where I read it, but a recent poll showed the majority of Scots blame Westminster squeezed budgets and political chicanery as cause for staff shortages and the current industrial disputes, not SG.
That must be disappointing for James Cook, Glenn Campbell, having spent countless hours trying to blame SG, the public simply are not buying it.
Propaganda only works if the audience listens, trust in the “public broadcaster” has effectively collapsed.
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Passive as in taking absolutely no responsibility?
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It’s being ignored because our wolves in sheep’s clothing in the Scottish Parliament could no longer howl ‘sack Yousaf’ and ‘resign Sturgeon’ if people were to know that the Scottish Government was actually doing something better than the one over the border and that would never do.
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At FMQs today in Holyrood, the leader of the Labour Party in Scotland – is he the most unctuous performer in the Parliament? – returned to attacking the Scottish Government on A&E waiting times.
Was Mr Sarwar’s choice of questions today an attempt to dilute any impact on the news agenda of significant improvements in NHS Scotland’s waiting times performance plus early signs of attendances at A&E dropping, presumably due in part to NHS Scotland and Scottish Government actions.
As Mr Sarwar again berates the Scottish Government he is in denial about the significance of Westminster decisions taken over more than a decade on resource levels for NHS England. This is in sharp contrast to Labour’s Mark Drakeford, FM in Wales who frequently and passionately calls out the Tory government.
And what of NHS Wales? As far as I can see this new report by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) has received no news coverage by the BBC:
Source: RCEM Wales (January 2023) Wales’ Emergency Medicine Workforc Census 2023 (https://rcem.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Wales_Emergency_Medicine_Workforce_Census_2023.pdf )
First from the foreword by Dr Suresh Pillai, Vice President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (Wales): ‘ EMERGENCY CARE PERFORMANCE IN WALES RANKS THIRD IN THE UK and in recent months, performance against THE FOUR-HOUR STANDARD HAS HIT RECORD LOWS with UNPRECEDENTED NUMBERS OF PATIENTS WAITING EIGHT AND 12 HOURS IN EDs (Emergency Departments) from their time of arrival. (with my emphasis)
‘.Welsh EDs have been UNDERSTAFFED FOR SOME TIME NOW resulting in PARTICULARLY HIGH LEVELS OF BURNOUT, more so than any other specialty. As a result, more clinicians are RAPIDLY CHOOSING TO LEAVE EMERGENCY MEDICINE.’
Among the main findings:
‘Since the start of the pandemic, the percentage of people being admitted, transferred, or discharged within four hours at major EDs in Wales has DETERIORATED BY ROUGHLY 15 PERCENTAGE POINTS.
‘In recent months, the four-hour standard has been as low as 55%, despite the target being 95%. THE FOUR-HOUR STANDARD TARGET HAS NOT BEEN MET BY MAJOR EDs IN WALES SINCE 2010.
‘Furthermore, the NUMBERS OF PATIENTS WAITING EIGHT AND 12 HOURS IN EDS FROM THEIR TIME OF ARRIVAL HAS RAPIDLY INCREASED IN RECENT YEARS. On average, 9,906 patients waited 12 hours or more from their time of arrival during the first six months of 2022. This is unacceptable, and there is now a growing body of evidence to show that PATIENTS ARE HARMED WHEN THEIR ADMISSION IS DELAYED.’
On other health-related matters: ‘PRIOR TO THE PANDEMIC, LIFE EXPECTANCY IMPROVEMENTS HAD STALLED IN WALES. A recent report from Public Health Wales found that THE GAP IN LIFE EXPECTANCY BETWEEN THOSE LIVING IN THE LEAST AND MOST DEPRIVED AREAS OF WALES IS INCREASING.’
‘RCEM recommends that safe recruitment of Emergency Medicine Consultants should be based on one WTE Consultant for every 4000 annual ED attendances. When analysing the responses to the census, it was clear that there was substantial variation in the Consultant:attendance ratio between departments. For example, the minimum ratio was one WTE Consultant to 4988 attendances while the maximum stood at one:13,290 attendances – both of course, are OVER THE RECOMMENDED RATIO AND ARE DEEMED UNSAFE.’
‘There were 16 unfilled funded Emergency Medicine Consultant posts in Wales with a range of reasons given. The most common answer was recruitment issues, meaning departments were struggling to fill funded posts. This is concerning as THERE IS NO TELLING HOW LONG THESE WORKFORCE GAPS WILL EXIST.’
‘The findings of the census have quantified what we already knew to be true: THERE ARE DANGEROUS LEVELS OF WORKFORCE SHORTAGES ACROSS EDs IN WALES. Furthermore, AS PERFORMANCE DETERIORATES AND THE JOB BECOMES EVER MORE UNSUSTAINABLE, WE ANTICIPATE RETENTION ISSUES TO CONTINUE.’
Regrettably, the RCEM in Wales – just like Mr Sarwar in Scotland – fails to acknowledge the root cause of most of these problems – resourcing decisions made in Westminster. However, Mr Drakeford recognises the source of the problem.
Source: BBC News website (25 January 2023): ‘Mark Drakeford accused of being ‘in denial’ on NHS’.
In the Senedd recently in response toTory leader (in Wales) Andrew RT Davies on matters concerning NHS Wales, Drakeford noted: ‘.. funding had been SQUEEZED BY THE UK GOVERNMENT and the amount the Welsh government can borrow has been FROZEN SINCE 2016. – “WHERE DOES THE MEMBER THINK THE MONEY COMES FROM TO DO THE THINGS HE SUGGESTS”.
On these difficulties facing the NHS, the UK context and perspective gained from both a quick look at the prevailing situation in Wales and the response of the Labour Welsh government, reveal the extent of the hypocrisy on display in Holyrood today from the Labour leadership. It is just so crass: presumably Labour is calculating that the corporate media and especially BBC Scotland will amplify their attack lines towards a less than fully informed section of the public and do so, as is normal practice, without accompanying challenge or analysis.
For the avoidance of doubt, it give me no pleasure to recount the problems facing NHS Wales and the Welsh Government at this time. My purpose, my sole objective, is to reduce the credibility of the Labour Party LEADERSHIP in Holyrood!
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