The funnel plot above tells us something reassuring. Scotland’s hospitals are all safe and there is little between them in terms of their safeness. When statisticians estimate their death rates for the following year, they rarely disappoint.
Where the actual death rate is the same as predicted, the HSMR is 1 and you can see Scotland’s hotels cluster closely around that. Where there is a difference it is always less than significant.
The orange dot at the top in the middle is the Royal Infirmary at Little France in Edinburgh with 250 more deaths than expected than the 1 718 predicted. The orange dot at the right is the often-maligned Southern General in Glasgow which consistently does better than predicted.
In England:
Be careful here to note the different scale used on the Y (vertical axis). Most English hospitals have comparable SHMI rates as those in Scotland.
What is different is the group of 20 or so with lower mortality rates (below the red dotted line) than in Scotland. These are very affluent areas not found in such size and cohesion in Scotland.
They highlight a more unequal country.
Discover more from Talking-up Scotland
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Talking-up Scotland 
The media shock horror today is the exam results. THE GAP, between students from areas of high SIMD areas compared to low SIMD has widened. Cue performative rage by interviewers and, on Ch4 News a chosen Glasgow University academic who was prompted/edited to be critical.
Although Jenny Gilruth who was aggressively questioned pointed out that the longer term trend was a narrowing the interviewer focussed on specific years.
This is the first year after three years of teacher estimates in which the normal routine was followed. The Fleet St media have been priming readers in England for reductions in pass rates when the English results come out in a week or so. I do not expect the Westminster Education Secretary to be interviewed aggressively.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Aye, just watched it and realised immediately how it was going to be framed as it was Kathryn Samson, following much the same approach as Ciaran Jenkins did.
Her insistence on comparison to 2018 figures instead of the trend was ludicrous, but nevertheless she trotted out the fancy graphs to prove her angle of SNP policy failure.
Across grades A to C showed a 0.4% reduction, yes a staggering 4 in every thousand pupils across ALL subjects were turning out poorer results than those better off.
Then she homed in on the A grades where surprise surprise, a staggering 3.5% across ALL subjects.
Thence fade to the Nicola Sturgeon speech at conference in 2015…
https://www.channel4.com/news/scotland-exam-results-attainment-gap-widens-between-richest-and-poorest
Gilruth held up well despite this nonsense, but it did make me wonder why C4’s reporting on Scottish matters remains almost as contrived as that of BBC Scotland….
LikeLiked by 2 people
Channel 4 is anti SNP, same as the Guardian rag. Pretendy lefty not so balanced story tellers, but they have influence. Both propaganda ops, working for the BritNat state. Scotland is really at a huge disadvantage in the media, and the EngGov intend to keep it that way.
LikeLiked by 1 person
To the best of my knowledge Ms Samson is the first Scottish reporter Ch4 News has had. She is the first I can recall to report on Scotland, but I cannot recall Scottish reporters on any aspect of the programme.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Nor can I to be honest – However, the style of reporting and framing by C4 is no different to her predecessor Jenkins or the BBC in Scotland, which implies a corporate ‘blind-eye’ is being similarly turned to partiality.
LikeLiked by 1 person