Thanks again to Dottie’s Phone for alerting me to this. All sources below.

Yesterday in the Guardian:

NHS figures that show more people than ever are being checked for cancer have been criticised as “misleading” by experts.

Official data published on Monday reported that almost 3 million people in England were tested for cancer in 2022, a 133% increase in the decade since 2013.

The latest monthly figures also show that October 2023 was the highest month on record for cancer checks, with 269,492 urgent referrals.

But leading cancer experts dismissed the figures as “misleading” and “smoke and mirrors”, noting that the NHS was failing to meet every cancer target by significant margins.

The October data shows that the proportion of cancer patients who waited less than two months for their first treatment after an urgent referral was 58.2%, well below the target of 85%.

The equivalent figure for NHS Scotland, within 62 days, was 72%, 24% better, meaning thousands more in Scotland treated on time and hundreds of thousands in England not treated on time.

A&E waiting times

In August 2023, NHS Scotland’s full A&E departments were 14% faster for the 4 hour target and, shockingly, 3 times as many waited more than12 hours in England.

However, the gaps are almost certainly wider.

On the 4 hour wait, England has the dubious practice of restarting the clock after patients are admitted whereas in Scotland counting continues from first arrival. See this:

On the 12 hour wait, this figure too was based on restarting the clock after decision to admit and not, as in Scotland, on the patient’s first arrival in A&E, until the Royal College of Emergency Medicine exposed the practice in February 2023.

Hospital Covid infections

Throughout the pandemic, Public Health Scotland reported weekly on hospital onset Covid infections allowing BBC Scotland the opportunity to report increases but also to ignore falls. Comparisons with England were not possible as such reporting was not required there.

However, some academic research studies did allow a dramatic comparison with between 18% and 23% infection levels in England’s hospitals and only around 1% in Scotland’s hospitals.

Drug deaths

Scotland’s media and opposition politicians just love drug deaths and are doing their best to ignore the falling trend, 21% down in the last year.

However, the comparison with England has been exposed by the UK Civil Service as deeply flawed due to a massive under-reporting of the presence of substances on death certificates by a ratio of 25.1% in England & Wales to only 1.9% in Scotland.

Finally:

There’s a wider message here. After decades of privatisation under the Tories and of managerialism under New Labour, England’s public service leaders cannot be trusted, motivated as they are by the need to present only positive results to those who agree their salaries and bonuses.

Sources:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/jan/01/nhs-data-for-england-showing-rise-in-cancer-checks-is-misleading-say-experts

https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/cancer-waiting-times/cancer-waiting-times-1-july-to-30-september-2023/

https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/data-and-intelligence/ae-activity/#section-3-2

https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/ae-waiting-times-and-activity/

https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/data-and-intelligence/ae-activity/#section-3-2

https://rcem.ac.uk/rcem-this-is-the-start-of-another-extremely-difficult-winter-and-we-dont-have-the-beds-that-we-desperately-need/

Click to access ECDS-Supplementary-Analysis-Statistical-commentary-Feb-2023.pdf

https://beta.isdscotland.org/find-publications-and-data/population-health/covid-19/hospital-onset-covid-19-cases-in-scotland/

https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/the-ongoing-problem-of-hospital-acquired-infections-across-the-uk/

https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/national-drug-and-alcohol-treatment-waiting-times/national-drug-and-alcohol-treatment-waiting-times-1-january-2023-to-31-march-2023/