In the Guardian today:
In the executive summary of the Sunak plan was an ambition to ensure at least 76% of patients are admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours by March 2024. Official data, though, shows the current rate is 69.5%, a fall since last January, and way off target.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/dec/16/sunak-missed-targets-leave-nhs-facing-catastrophic-winter-crisis
Not for the first time, English commentators use the wrong data and in so doing hide the awful, third-world state, of A&E across England. Here are the data for all three types of A&E:
The Guardian writers have used, almost, the figure for ‘all’ emergency departments including the wee ‘sticking plaster’ departments in community hospitals and health centres – 69.7% seen in 4 hours.
Only the ‘type 1’ departments are full, consultant-led A&E departments, comparable with the ‘ED’ type in Scotland.
The figure is 55.4% seen within 4 hours.
In Scotland, for the same period, the figure is 64.1%, 16% better.
Talking-up Scotland 
“And for the ‘Scots’ who don’t want to know the true comparison, look away now.”
OPEN YOUR EYES, PEOPLE!
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It’s remarkable this avoidance of the key metric of waits in NHS England’s Type 1 (major) emergency departments! This practice is commonplace with the BBC and other corporate media outlets despite it being the prime focus of ALL press statements by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) following the release of monthly performance statistics.
Moreover, the House of Commons Library in a research briefing entitled ‘NHS key statistics: England’ (from 15 November 2023) noted: ‘… looking at type 1 figures only is often A MORE USEFUL WAY TO TRACK TRENDS.’ (my emphasis)
It’s not as if the most recent performance of NHS England is not ‘newsworthy’! From the RCEM, issued 14 December: ‘We must not normalise crisis’. In the statement below the headline we learn that: ‘The four-hour target at major A&Es stood at 55.4%, this is THE FOURTH WORST FOUR-HOUR PERFORMANCE ON RECORD AND THE LOWEST SO FAR IN 2023.’
We also learn that: ‘In November 2023, 144,085 patients waited 12-hours or more from their time of arrival. THIS ACCOUNTS FOR 10.9% OF ALL MAJOR A&E ATTENDANCES in November.’
For perspective on the latter measure, on 5th December the RCEM issued a statement under this heading: “These data are deeply concerning” RCEM Scotland says, as one in 20 patients face 12-hour waits in A&Es in Scotland’. This refers to October 2023 performance data:
We learn that: ‘5,927 (5.3%) patients waited more than 12-hours before being seen, admitted, discharged, or transferred. This is equal to more than ONE IN 20 PATIENTS WAITING 12-HOURS OR MORE IN MAJOR A&ES IN SCOTLAND.’
(In passing, I am confident that no-one waited 12 hours or more ‘TO BE SEEN’ AS the RCEM statement suggests!)
No one wants to be in A&E for 12 hours before transfer, admission or discharge: NHS Scotland and the Scottish Government clearly want to do much better. But there is a SUBSTANTIAL DIFFERENCE between 1 in 20 in Scotland and 1 in 10 in England spending 12 hours! However, the RCEM – and the BBC and mainstream media – don’t ever seem to acknowledge any difference!
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Ah, that would be the Guardian which has an Editorial today about the failures of the SNP and how Labour is on the up in Scotland. As usual when they write such articles about Scotland Comments are not open because they know their assertions would be torn to shreds.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/17/the-guardian-view-on-the-snp-budget-forced-into-paying-a-bill-for-its-outlays
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contact the readers complaint link – can be found if you dig deep enough. I regularly complain about articles mentioning ,British, rather than ,English, problems in NHS etc. I also suggest a little education might go a long way…
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How the figures are compiled has been a long been a contentious issue between RCEM and NHS England, but I suggest we are simply more aware of the issues than the media or public in England because of the propaganda games in the media drawing false comparison with NHS Scotland.
Yet even if you look to ‘like for like’ comparison, we must bear in mind that the headline %age is for the totality of England or Scotland, masking the excellent and abysmal.
That NHSS are still hitting high %ages despite years of deliberately strangled funding by London is in itself remarkable, but if the likes of Streeting gain power it will only get worse – Knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing is the great british disease…
This is why I find the political line of “we can’t afford it” so wholly offensive, it is OUR money not THEIRS… The birth of the NHS was at a time the UK was on it’s financial knees with power cuts, rationing, lack of housing, thousands returning from War, yet the Attlee government got on with it, never once mentioning “we can’t afford it”.
Streeting would not be standing long with such nonsense in 1946, and there is no reason he should be 77 years later…
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