By stewartb
NHS England has just published (13 July) the latest waiting time performance figures for its A&E departments. You may not get to know much about this – even if you live in England and keep a close eye on news of your public services. But perhaps there is nothing about the latest figures that is newsworthy?
BBC coverage
The BBC News website – tucked away in its Health section but nowhere to be seen (yet?) in its main UK, its main England and not (of course!) its Politics sections – has an article entitled ‘NHS waiting lists hit record high in England’.
This piece – majoring on time to start routine hospital treatment – has a quote from a Royal College which makes no mention of ‘government’; uses an senior NHS England official to respond to the bad figures; makes no reference to a government minister bar the PM blaming ‘industrial action’; and has zero reference to an opposition politician!
The BBC does journalism differently in England: the Labour Party and the Lib Dems do politics differently in England!
Way down in the same article we learn this: ‘Meanwhile, for emergency departments, the latest figures show there was a slight deterioration in June. Some 73.3% of patients were seen or assessed within the four-hour target, down from 74% the previous month.’
How on earth does the BBC get away with such blatant misrepresentation – or is it cover-up? The 73.3% statistic is for patients attending any kind of emergency department in England, including minor injury clinics. The Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) when commenting on waiting times performance in England only ever focuses on so-called Type 1 departments, viz. the consultant-led, 24 hour full service departments most people would recognise as ’proper A&E’.
When the RCEM comments on waits in Scotland it focuses only on the ‘main’ departments, the equivalent of England’s Type 1s. And in Scotland that does the BBC do? It does the same as the RCEM. The BBC does journalism differently in England!
On ‘special’ Tuesday – the big day of the week for gaslighting Scotland (- and perhaps the day when young people are put off entering a career in NHS Scotland?) – BBC Scotland this week discovered something sufficiently newsworthy to merit a long piece in the BBC News website. This was the headline chosen: ‘Scotland’s A&E four hour target continues to be missed.’ It provided a platform for the usual outrage from Tory, labour and Lib Dem MSPs.
Here comes essential whataboutery!
So let’s see what NHS England’ announced on 13 July about its A&E waiting times performance during the month of June!
First for context: ‘Attendances at type 1 A&E departments were 0.8% lower when compared with June 2022’ and ‘Type 1 growth over the last 3 months, compared to the same period last year, is -2.2%’. So demand for the services of England’s main A&E departments is relatively stable.
Now to the waiting times: ‘60.2% of patients were seen within 4 hours in type 1 A&E departments compared to 60.4% in May 2023 and 58.8% in June 2022.’ Or in BBC Scotland’s parlance: ‘England’s A&E four hour target continues to be missed’!
Remember, the BBC News website has just been reporting that 73.3% of patients – not 60.2% – were treated with 4 hours. This deception has been going on for months if not years!
Long waits in A&E
We also learn this from the latest NHS England data release:
‘Of all the total attendances in May 2023, 118,000 waited more than 12 hours from arrival at A&E (8.6%).
‘Of all the total attendances in June 2023, 108,000 waited more than 12 hours from arrival at A&E (8.0%).’ The June figure is described as ‘provisional’
Is 8% of patients in England waiting at least 12 hours newsworthy?
Under this ‘damning headline’ (- what’s happening to BBC Scotland’s creativity?) – ‘Scotland’s A&E four hour target continues to be missed’ – the BBC tells its readers that: ‘According to the figures, of the 25,394 attendances at A&E, 600 waited longer than 12 hours, up from 583’. This was the figure for the week ending 2 July. A little arithmetic reveals that, at least for this single week, just 2.4% of patients waited 12 hours or more. So that’s a whole lot better than 8.0% isn’t it?
Perhaps this was an anomalous week and should be discounted? To check, next let’s look at the NHS Scotland data for 12 hour waits at main A&E departments in the months of May and June, 2023. From week ending 30 April to w/e 25 June 2023, there were 240,543 attendances at Scotland’s main A&E departments. In the same period, 6,818 patients (yes, far too many!) waited for 12 hours or more i.e. 2.8%. (Source:https://www.nhsperforms.scot/)
Back to BBC Scotland
Back on 10 January 2023, the BBC News website had this headline about NHS Scotland: ‘A&E patients waiting more than 12 hours hits record high’.
Readers were told: ‘Public Health Scotland data shows 2,506 people spent more than half a day in A&E in the week ending 1 January. That was up from 2,183 the previous week – which at the time was the highest ever figure.’ We’re also informed that: ‘Overall, 24,685 people attended A&E in the latest week.’
A bit more arithmetic reveals that in the week to 1 January 2023, the BBC is reporting that 10.1% of patients waited for 12 hours or more. Now that’s high! Could this have been an anomalous week, the one after Christmas?
We’ve gone back to the source data available on the NHS Performs website. From the w/e 4 December 2022 to w/e 29 January 2023 the absolute numbers waiting 12 hours or more varied between a low of 881 per week to a high of 2,787 per week.
To get a better idea of the overall situation, from w/e 4 December 2022 and w/e 29 January 2023 there were 215,643 attendances. In this period, a total of 14,879 patients waited 12 hours or longer i.e. 6.9%. The BBC article focused on what was relatively anomalous and never came back to readers to provide reasonable perspective. And by the way 6.9% across two mid-winter months is still a lot lower than 8% waiting 12 hours or more in June, in England, isn’t it?
Unfortunately, it’s not possible to compare these December ’22 to January ’23 long waits with an equivalent for England – even if the BBC would have wanted to (lol!). Prior to April 2023, NHS England did not provide regular accounts of 12 hour waits from a patient’s time of arrival preferring to start the clock on the longest waits from the time a ‘decision to admit’ was made. This is a practice the RCEM told a House of Lords committee was ‘dishonest’!
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
“How does the BBC get away with it?” Because it has been set up by the British establishment to ensure that the establishment’s position is not challenged.
There is no mention of the government in English health stories because the Tories are in power and are likely to be replaced by the quasi Tory Starmer Labour Party.
The Scottish Government and Scotland in general is continually ‘gas lit’, because it is a threat to the power of the establishment. Nae Scotland = nae oil and gas, very few renewables, loss of more than half the territory particularly territorial waters, nae place to park the U.K. phallus that is Trident, the loss of most of the fresh water, most of the fish, etc. so, the underpinning of Sterling is gone and the pound tanks.
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It’s the complete lack of “self awareness” from BBC Scotland, that their viewers and listeners are declining at such a rate because of the absolute biased dross that they endlessly churn out.
Still, the less folk that view or listen to it, let alone pay for it, means it is doing something right I suppose.
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