Perspective on the NHS – the antidote to Tory/Labour tactics in Scotland that must be withheld!

By stewartb

The Royal College of Radiologists (RC) has just published two census reports on the workforce treating cancer in the NHS across the UK. It’s worth delving in to some of the details not least because the BBC’s coverage, whilst prominent, makes little or nothing (of course) of those findings that paint NHS Scotland in a relatively favourable light.

Purpose

The state of the NHS in Scotland compared to its peers in the rest of the UK is a much covered topic on TuS.  My sense of the coverage here – and certainly my own position – is NOT that NHS Scotland is always performing well, not even that it’s relative performance is ‘good enough’.

No, the point of talking up NHS Scotland arguably is to provide UK context and perspective. It’s also to point up the acute and relentless politicisation of NHS performance issues in Scotland by the corporate media, by the BBC and by Tory and Labour members of the Holyrood Parliament in stark contrast to how similar matters typically are addressed elsewhere in the UK. Despite the Tory and Labour governments in England and Wales presiding over what is often poorer NHS performance, their spokespersons in Scotland go way beyond mere politicisation: they mount highly personalised attacks on health ministers in the Scottish Government which are enabled by BBC Scotland without critical, comparative assessment or challenge.

Below are selected findings from the two RCR reports, first on clinical oncology and then on clinical radiology.

Summary of Royal College’s findings

On oncologists, the two maps below plot: (i) the total number of oncologists per 100,000 of the older (50 plus) population; and (ii) estimates of the shortfalls in clinical oncologists in 2022 and 2027.

Source: Royal College of Radiologists (8 June 2023) Clinical oncology workforce census 2022 (https://www.rcr.ac.uk/sites/default/files/documents/rcr_clinical_oncology_workforce_census_2023.pdf )

The map of staff resource per 100k population shows a relatively low figure (4.9) for ‘North Scotland’ whereas South East Scotland has the highest outside London. Oddly, Edinburgh is included in South East Scotland but Glasgow is included in ‘North Scotland’!  Have you ever – I mean EVER – seen a map of Scotland divided up in such a way!

The estimated shortfalls of clinical oncologists in Scotland by 2027 is similar to that for England and NI but hugely smaller than the estimate for Wales.

The table below provides some additional statistics taken from the RCR’s raw census data (see https://www.rcr.ac.uk/clinical-oncology/rcr-clinical-oncology-workforce-census-2022). (Just for the denigrators of NHS Scotland who are prevalent amongst the Labour Party’s leadership in Holyrood, the least favourable statistic is in the shaded cell!)

On radiologists, the census report does not provide a comparable map of geographic variation in the numbers of radiologists per 100k population (but see table below). It does compare and contrast estimated shortfalls in clinical radiologists in maps form. It shows that the estimated shortfall, including to 2027, is lowest in Scotland.

Source: Royal College of Radiologists (8 June 2023) Clinical Radiology Workforce Census 2022 (https://www.rcr.ac.uk/sites/default/files/documents/rcr_clinical_radiology_workforce_census_2023.pdf )

The table below has some additional statistics taken from the RCR’s raw census data (see https://www.rcr.ac.uk/clinical-oncology/rcr-clinical-oncology-workforce-census-2022). (Again the least favourable statistic is in the shaded cell!)

End note

Yes, what is taken here from the RCR reports IS selective: (i) it highlights relatively favourable statistics for the situation in Scotland; but (2) it also demonstrates, as do both reports overall, that performance shortfalls and challenges in cancer care are indeed being experienced by the NHS in ALL UK NATIONS.

The extreme and relentless negativity promoted by most corporate media outlets and the BBC, and stated by opposition politicians (selectively) towards NHS Scotland and by association the Scottish Government is revealed to be wholly disproportionate and unjustifiable, as evidenced in studies such as these by the RCR and by others!

If only the RCR had opted to report these census data ONLY for NHS Scotland! Then BBC Scotland would have been able once again – without context, without perspective – to provide the Tories’ Dr Gulhane and Labour’s Ms Baillie with another golden opportunity to gaslight the residents of Scotland.

Of course, the RCR census data being provided for the NHS in each of the UK nations in combined publications doesn’t in any way alter the status – good or bad – of the reported statistics for Scotland. So why are these two individuals missing from the Scotland section of the BBC News website’s coverage of these? Could it be best to keep quiet when hard to avoid ‘perspective’ threatens their base political tactics?