From the Ferret today:

Women wait longer than men for emergency medical care in Scotland despite the fact they are more likely to be admitted to hospital after being seen in A&E.

The Ferret analysed data on monthly waiting time rates for women and men in 27 of 30 emergency departments in Scotland, obtained from Public Health Scotland through a freedom of information request.

Our research found that women waited twelve minutes longer than men in April 2023, with 60.5 per cent of women seen within four hours, compared to 64 per cent of men.

My own wee ferrety ears always prick up when the Ferret makes headlines. Readers may remember their hatchet job on Scotland’s (SNP) performance across a range of environmental topics, published in the Herald. There’s always a stench of Scottish Labour in their reporting though surely their underlying lefty (which I like) sentiments must be a bit challenged these days.

Watch out for this ‘research’ making the front pages along with comments from Jackie Baillie as we begin the run-in to a by-election that Labour fancy they can win.

First, a question – Why did the Ferret think to do this FOI? Who encouraged them, at this time?

Second, another question – Why did they not look at delays experienced by those of different ethnic or socio-economic status?

Back to the research. They report:

The gender gap in A&E waiting times has quadrupled since 2021. Women waited an average 2.5 minutes longer than men before the pandemic – 2013-2019 – and ten minutes longer in the period from January 2021 to April 2023. This is despite women being more likely to be admitted to hospital after receiving urgent care.

https://theferret.scot/longer-ae-waits-disadvantage-women-figures-show/#:~:text=The%20gender%20gap%20in%20A%26E,hospital%20after%20receiving%20urgent%20care.

So for 9 years, the average gap was 2.5 minutes, that is out of 4 hours (?), non-significant. Then they compare a 9 year sample with an average 2.5 min gap, with a 3 year sample, with an average gap of 10 minutes. Then they compare that with just one month when it was 12 minutes.

Any stats beginner can see problems with this. They should be looking at comparing equal sized samples of 5 years to see if there is a long-term trend. Did they do that and the figures were less newsworthy? Does the line graph over the 12 years just go up and down in a kind of random way?

And ‘This is despite women being more likely to be admitted to hospital after receiving urgent care?’ Were women also more likely to be admitted to hospital when the gap was a statistically insignificant 2.5 minutes? Was the gap also there in the urgent cases or just in the overall admissions group?

If women in the urgent life-threatening cases waited much longer that’d be worth knowing.

Finally, what are the relative mortality rates in A&E for men and women. Are the men coming to A&E more likely to die?

Three times as many men as women die by suicide so if a male attendee reports feeling suicidal, maybe he should be seen more quickly because he might just go outside again and do it?

Men are significantly more likely to be victims of violence so are they often in immediate need of attention to stop blood flow, infection and to check for brain damage?

Throughout life, heart attacks are twice as common in men than women so should they be seen more quickly than less life-threatening cases.

Should the Ferret disclose their funding sources?

Sources:

https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/explore-mental-health/statistics/men-women-statistics

https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/throughout-life-heart-attacks-are-twice-as-common-in-men-than-women