254 English hospitals substandard – Scotland’s media unable to find even one here

Michael Matheson, UK’s more effective health secretary

In the Guardian today:

More than half of all hospitals in England and over two-thirds of those in London offer substandard care, an Observer investigation has found.

In one hospital emergency department, inspectors reported patients being treated in corridors and deadly diseases such as sepsis and cancer not being diagnosed.

The Observer analysed the ratings by Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspectors of 254 general hospitals – excluding those that provide single services or specialised care. Seven were rated as “inadequate” and 122 as “requires improvement” – 51% of the total.

The situation was significantly worse in London. Of 37 hospitals in the capital, 25 (68%) were rated as substandard.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/nov/18/more-than-half-of-hospitals-england-rated-substandard-health-regulator

I’ve searched and searched. I can find no example of a Scottish hospital being inspected and found to be ‘substandard.’ Imagine there was such a report, you know damn fine we’d hear all about it and for weeks on end.

6 thoughts on “254 English hospitals substandard – Scotland’s media unable to find even one here”

  3. But you can be sure it is not for the want of looking that none have been found. Lisa Summers will be on the case.

    Not just hospital buildings that are failing in England but maternity care too according to reports last week.

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  4. ‘Imagine there was such a report, you know damn fine we’d hear all about it and for weeks on end.’

    And we would hear all about it from politicians in Holyrood and Westminster opposed to the present Scottish Government, from most of the mainstream corporate media and from the BBC. And we would hear condemnation without any regard to the reality of Scotland’s longstanding and still current, constrained status.

    When the power – the agency – and the resources to achieve in terms of public services within a nation state are allocated out to sub-state organisations – in devolved or federal systems of government – it is logical, it is natural to compare and contrast how services in areas with different governments deliver. Derogatory claims of ‘whataboutery’ are made only by those with something to hide or wholly misunderstand where powers lie!

    The crucial factor in the UK’s system of government is that whilst there certainly is devolution, one of the four constituent nations, namely England, has a government with ALL the power, the agency to affect not only what happens in England but also to impact what happens in the other nations reliant on ‘grace and favour’ (powers ‘owned’ in Westminster but granted to ..) devolution. These crucial factors include powers over most fiscal levers, all monetary levers plus trade, migration, defence spend, international (including EU) relations, labour market regulations, most social security plus energy related powers. (There may be more.)

    But the BBC and most of the corporate media seem only to be interested in drawing comparisons when the results put Scotland in an unfavourable light relative to other parts of the UK. Why would they do otherwise? Why would a pro-British/pro-Unionist media organisation provide favourable news coverage of an institution – the Scottish Government – when the parties in power have as a core objective the dissolution of the Union?

    On what occasions – if ever – and on what topics does BBC Scotland frame Scottish Government actions positively?

    Perhaps TuS should have a feature called ‘Spot the Positive’- actually, even ‘Spot the Neutral and Objective’ might get at least some contributions – in which readers share their rare experiences of positively framed stories from BBC Scotland concerning the present Scottish Government.

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  5. BBC Scotland is running an ‘SNP bad’ story about a school in Dingwall, under the headline –

    “Our children are being failed by the condition of their school”

    For the record, the School Estate Statistics for the year 2022-23 says there were –

    https://www.gov.scot/publications/school-estate-statistics-2023/

    “46 school builds or substantial refurbishment projects completed. This brings the total number of school builds or substantial refurbishment projects completed since 2007-08 to 1,098.

    90.7% of schools reported in good or satisfactory condition in April 2023, up 0.3 percentage points since 2022.

    91.5% of pupils in schools reported in good or satisfactory condition in April 2023, down 0.2 percentage points since 2022.

    88.9% of schools reported with good or satisfactory suitability in April 2023, up 1.1 percentage points since 2022.”

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