The BBC Breakfast broadcasts and their Health website are making much of:
Sepsis failings still causing too many deaths – ombudsman
The UK Sepsis Trust estimates about 48,000 people die each year from sepsis-related illnesses, “thousands” of which are preventable.
NHS England said it was working to improve sepsis management.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-67204563
The report is, of course, entirely about England. There is a separate ombudsman in Scotland.
Is there evidence of a comparable ‘crisis’ in NHS Scotland?
Well, BBC Scotland has only a report of one of their reporters getting it during an interview: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-63546160
We reported the evidence up to 2022, in September that year:
While deaths caused by sepsis have fallen by 21% since 2012, thanks in part to the work of the Scottish Patient Safety Programme, it is still vital that people are aware of this potentially fatal condition. https://www.gov.scot/news/raising-awareness-of-sepsis/
What’s the Scottish Patient Safety Programme and how good is it?
In January 2022:
The Scottish Patient Safety Programme (SPSP), introduced by the SNP Scottish Government in 2007, has been praised by a leading European expert on patient safety.
In Westminster’s Health Committee, Dr Pelle Gustafson, CMO at Swedish Patient Insurer, responded with “Scotland”, when he was asked which country he would hold at the very top pillar with regards to patient safety.Dr Gustfason said: “If you take all preventative work in regard to patient safety, I would say Scotland, I am personally very impressed with Scotland. I think in Scotland you have a long tradition of working, you have a development in the right direction and you also have a system which is fairly equal all over the place. You have improvement activities going on. So I am very impressed by Scotland”.https://mobile.twitter.com/DrGregorSmith/status/1481211002301685760
Does the above context matter to the BBC?
Our journalism will be well sourced, based on sound evidence, and thoroughly tested. It will rely on fact rather than opinion, and be set in context.
PRODUCERS’ GUIDELINES THE BBC’S VALUES AND STANDARDS: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/1831/response/3475/attach/4/RFI20080896%20Producers%20Guidelines%20Part%201.pdf?cookie_passthrough=1
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
This here is the biggest lie BBC Scotland tell
“Our journalism will be well sourced, based on sound evidence, and thoroughly tested. It will rely on fact rather than opinion, and be set in context.”
Every single day year after year after year they fail this simple test.
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Absolutely!
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Sepsis : an internal infection which sets off a chain reaction throughout the body .
A neat definition of the state of BBCScorchedland . Can it be saved ?
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BBC are not alone but are the worst at telling lies , they do it on behalf of England they are controlled tightly by their Westminster they repeatedly say everything in Scotland is bad and a majority of people in Scotland do not want Scottish independence but the truth is , a majority do want Scottish independence that’s why they refuse to have a referendum and that’s why this propaganda war is taking place in Scotland.
Northern Ireland copies it , we recently had the Westminster rep for unionism in Northern Ireland saying a large majority of people in Ireland would have to want reunification for there to be a referendum , this is exactly the same guff they tell Scotland , some even say England should have a vote on it , but they refuse to put it to the test because they know the next vote on Scottish independence will be a YES and the next vote on reunification of Ireland will be a YES meanwhile sepsis , nhs useless , ferries useless , snp useless , schools useless , Scottish people useless and of course they say we need English people to spend all of our money for us because we wouldn’t do it properly ourselves so they fill top jobs all over Scotland with English people who employ their friends colleagues and friends from …you guessed it….England.
We see them , we hear them , we know what they are doing , we are outnumbered ten to one but that won’t stop us getting our freedom , our right to live as a free country.
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Thank you for this
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BBC Scotland is exulting about the number of deaths last winter being ‘the highest on record’. It is only partially contextualised, providing some data from previous years but no comparative data for England, Wales, Ni or other north European countries.
It has all the hallmarks of a piece of anti-Scottish propaganda produced by the hacks at the Scotland Office unit in Elizabeth House. It icludes extensive comments by the gruesome threesome of “Dr’ Gulhane, Her Dameness the Jaikie of Baillie and Eck Cauld Ham.
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Totally OT but was amused to see HMS James Cook attempting to resuscitate the Ferry Stories propaganda with a “Ferguson ferry design ‘more complex’ than warships” article, https://archive.ph/xdaAq
Note the excuse this time is comparison to the new Type 26 anti-submarine frigates being built, not the Type 45 destroyers which broke down to much embarrassment, or the farce over aircraft carriers, or the Ajax banjaxed project, etc., etc..
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I remember this specific incident well. When that guy cited Scotland as the gold standard the English chair of the interviewing committee responded that they were well aware of the person responsible for the achievement because they had tried to get him to work for the English health service. That unguarded response was a great example of the English colonial mindset at work.
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The United Kingdom is indeed a strange place. So many people in public roles with access to the media seem disorientated. For some reason they find real difficulty in identifying which part/s of the UK their observations, their data, their conclusions and/or their professional responsibilities pertain.
Today, the article on BBC News website on sepsis has this sentence: ‘Too many people are still dying from sepsis due to “the same mistakes” highlighted more than 10 years ago, the UK’s health ombudsman has warned’ and goes on ‘Rob Behrens, who handles complaints about the NHS, said sepsis diagnosis and treatment was taking too long.’
Note the attribution – to the ‘UK’s health ombudsman’.
In the report of 10 years ago referred to in the BBC piece, the foreword was written by the ‘Health Service Ombudsman for England’.
On this (unique?) occasion, the BBC journalist may be excused as the press release (dated 25 October) from Mr Behrens’ own office which prompted the article has this: ‘The UK’s Health Ombudsman has warned that sepsis is still taking too many lives due to the same hospital failings we were seeing over ten years ago.’
Note again the reference – this time from the ‘horses mouth’ – to the ‘UK’s Health Ombudsman’.
But as the main blog post notes, Scotland has its own, separate ombudsman: ‘The Scottish Public Services Ombudsman has a wide remit, covering a variety of functions and services. The Ombudsman’s powers and duties come (predominantly) from the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman Act 2002, which gives her four distinct statutory functions: (including) the final stage for complaints about most devolved public services in Scotland including councils, the health service, prisons, water and sewerage providers, Scottish Government, universities and colleges’ (from the SPSO’s website).
A search of the SPSO’s website using the term ‘sepsis’ reveals that it has conducted a number of investigations into complaints associated with this dangerous health condition in Scotland.
Later in the BBC article, reference is made to NHS England which is accorded the right of response to the ombudsman’s claims: ‘NHS England said it was working to improve sepsis management.’ So we have reference to a statement on a hugely important health topic from an ombudsman claimed to have a UK-wide role and quoting UK-wide mortality statistics but ONLY NHS England gets the opportunity to reply, to explain. Sadly, this is typical!
Returning to the press release from Mr Behrens, – remember he’s the supposed ‘UK’s Health Ombudsman’ but whose official title is the ‘Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’ – it was issued to accompany the publication of a new report entitled ‘Spotlight on sepsis: your stories, your rights’. The foreword starts with this from Mr Behrens: ‘As the national health Ombudsman, I see time and again ….’ Hardly striving to avoid ambiguity here! All the patient case studies used in this new report are from England. And at the end of the report readers are advised on how to complain, but only about NHS England!
Part of the ‘Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’ role is to act at the interface between the public and Whitehall government departments in addition to the ‘Health Service’. This would include a role with regards to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) but as the latter only has a remit with health and social care in England (plus a more minor role in the UK’s international work on health) this could NOT justify the ‘UK Health Ombudsman’ claim.
And the BBC is clearly getting confused too. From the BBC News website on 5 September: ‘NHS ombudsman calls for Martha’s rule to give power to patients – Top boss of NHS complaints in England has told the BBC he wants Martha’s rule to be introduced …’.
Disoriented – or is it more about disorienting?
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Yes, their Health Service is named “the National Health Service or NHS” whereas it’s NHS Scotland. Similarly in football, It’s the FA, as if England has the only Football Association, while in Scotland it has to be the SFA. It’s really ingrained in their attitudes
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