This information today from reader Dottie’s Phone today, based on extractions from the Guardian’s £14bn plan to reduce NHS cancer backlogs in England is failing, MPs say
England:
The MPs found waiting times for cancer treatment were “at their worst recorded level”, and concluded that the target to ensure that 85% of people did not wait more than 62 days for cancer treatment after an urgent GP referral would not be met by March 2023. In the first five months of 2022-23, only 62% of patients met the target and 11% were treated more than 104 days after an urgent referral.
at end of article:
” In Wales, barely half (54%) of patients start treatment for cancer within 62 days of an urgent referral by their GP, while in Scotland, the SNP government is also failing to meet its cancer targets, with no Scottish health boards meeting the target to treat 95% of patients within 62 days of an urgent referral by GPs. Overall just under three-quarters (74.7%) of patients began treatment within the 62-day standard, according to the latest figures.”
So, on cancer waiting times, NHS Scotland (74.7%) is 20% better than NHS England and 44% than NHS Wales.
Talking-up Scotland 
The Guardian writer works hard in the para on comparative cancer waits to underplay, de-emphasise the much better performance in Scotland.
Once one starts to notice such word constructions in the coverage of matters Scottish they appear to be commonplace.
Also in the Guardian article: ‘Responding to the findings (of the Common’scommittee) Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said the NHS was paying the price for the longest financial squeeze in its history, and that a decade of austerity had left it to grapple with 133,000 staff vacancies, a shortage of key equipment, and much of the estate in ill-repair.’
So Tory austerity plus Covid caused the crisis in NHS England, a crisis which continues. In Scotland, the political scalp hunters disagree: they put all the blame for NHS problems here on the Scottish Government’s health secretary.
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My wife twice has had to use this service and had the most wonderful treatment and aftercare in Dundee and Aberdeen, they are a class act for sure.
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