In the Herald yesterday, ignoring what is ‘the news’ by definition :
Scotland records worst ever A&E 12-hour waits in December
THE number of people spending over 12 hours in A&E exceeded 8000 for the first time in December.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/23304450.scotland-records-worst-ever-e-12-hour-waits-december/
Typically picking out a soor ploom, from last month, they ignore the currently plummeting weekly number waiting over 12 hours, falling from 2 261 in the first week of January 2023, to only 851 or around 3 500 over a month and so half the December figure.
Oooh, I think I might not go to A&E because the Herald says they were too busy five weeks ago.
Talking-up Scotland 
DOES THAT MEAN WE WHO PURCHASE THIS PAPER GET A BACKDATED REBATE!!!!!!!!!
Sent from my iPad
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Whatever else they may be, the weekly over 12 hour wait statistic from NHS Scotland is transparent and credible unlike the 12 hour metric for A&E waits published monthly by NHS England. In a recent House of Lords report the latter was referred to as ‘dishonest’: the report gave an example of the likely scale of the deception on patients and the wider voting public in England.
Source: Public Services Committee, House of Lords (19 January, 2023) Emergency healthcare: a national emergency (https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld5803/ldselect/pubserv/130/130.pdf )
Para 81: ‘The data NHS England publishes monthly show the number of patients who wait 12 hours or more AFTER A ‘DECISION TO ADMIT’, when a clinician decides a patient should be admitted to hospital, but NOT THE NUMBER OF PATIENTS WHO WAIT 12 HOURS OR MORE AFTER ARRIVING AT A&E. .. ‘
Para 82: ‘The Royal College of Emergency Medicine report that in August 2022, OVER 133,000 PATIENTS WAITED MORE THAN 12 HOURS FROM ARRIVAL AT A&E – A FIGURE FIVE TIMES HIGHER THAN THE 28,000 REPORTED BY NHS ENGLAND. (my emphasis)
‘Dr Adrian Boyle, President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, argued that this manner of reporting waiting times was “A FUNDAMENTALLY DISHONEST WAY OF REPORTING DATA. IT IS HIDING AND DOING OUR PATIENTS A DISSERVICE BY MINIMISING A VERY SERIOUS PROBLEM”.
How the latest, improving NHS Scotland performance data have been reported, or rather not reported, reveals the extent of the political bias, including by omission, against the Scottish Government of the corporate media and the BBC in Scotland. I really should no longer be surprised but, candidly it becomes so blatant at times that it can still shock!
It’s not only that reassuring information for the public at large is being suppressed. These same media outlets have consistently and over an extended period aggregated and amplified the ‘outrage’ cries of opposition politicians in Holyrood over the performance of NHS Scotland.
They have done so without context or perspective, failing to mention that the ministerial scalp hunters in chief belong to political parties in government in parts of the UK – England and Wales – where NHS performance is mostly worse than in Scotland.
And of course we rarely if ever see journalists produce objective comparisons of performance between the nations of the UK. The latter seems to be a relevant type of analysis only for narrowest range of topics, like drug deaths!
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“Stewart! Stewart! Stewart!” roars John Beattie,” this is just ‘what-aboutery’.”
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Not only the Herald they are all at and no surprise there the best one is this.
Conservative health spokesman Dr Sandesh Gulhane said the December A&E figures were “catastrophic”
Don’t expect anything else from him one day a week doctor.
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Perhaps Helen McArdle is living in the past. Lets face it, time-machines are so much more affordable these days.
Pity then that the Herald cannot go back to when it was a respected Newspaper.
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