On 25 February, the Herald’s Helen McCardle rejoiced in this
NHS England has has already has fewer people waiting over two-years for hospital treatment, and the number of planned operations being performed is closer to pre-pandemic levels than it is in Scotland
https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/23344871.nhs-recovery-drive-england-outperforming-scotland/
The UK Government and NHS England have been sneaky again, as they did when they began restarting the clock for A&E patients, after they had been triaged.
They knew how the media feasted on stories of patients waiting more than two years and regardless of the seriousness of the cases, threw money at them, rushing them through private hospitals and at the expense of other targets.
From the BMJ on February 10 2023:
More than three million patients waited longer than 18 weeks for treatment in England in December, the highest number on record, show data for the NHS in England. In November 2022 a total of 2 902 274 waited 18 weeks or longer, and in December this figure rose to 3 051 661, the data on referral to treatment times show.1
Despite the government’s commitment to cut extremely long waits, with a target to eliminate NHS waits of over 18 months entirely by April 2023, the number of patients waiting at least 18 months rose from 48 961 in November 2022 to 54 882 in December. Overall in England 7.2 million patients await treatment.
https://www.bmj.com/content/380/bmj.p332
All things being equal, in the same month, December 2022, you’d expect Scotland to have 305 000 but in fact it had only 20 448 waiting over 18 weeks.
14.52 times more, per head of population, waiting longer than 18 weeks in England than in Scotland
Source:
Why will not one media health correspondent in Scotland report this?
Talking-up Scotland 