In the Guardian today, from Poly Toynbee, one always keen to suggest things are bad in Scotland under the SNP:
Jammed 999 lines and not enough ambulances to go round: come see the sharp end of this NHS crisis
There’s no mention of Scotland in the Guardian report.
In January 2024, I wrote:
Via the BBC’s How long do patients wait for an ambulance? app today, we can confirm that the average waiting time for a Scottish ambulance is 8 min and 46 secs: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59549800
Also, from BBC UK on 14 December 2023:
Average response times of more than 38 minutes for category two emergency calls such as heart attacks and strokes – above the target time of 18 minuteshttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-67714151
Yes, I know the English figures are only for Category 2 emergency calls such as heart attacks and strokes and we can’t see if the Scottish figures are for the same or for all categories, but if they were for all categories including the less serious ones, that would make the Scottish average even more impressive!
I did expect not to find Scottish postcodes in the app, as is the case for Wales and Northern Ireland. Let’s see if BBC Scotland manage to get them removed after they see this.
It’s April now. I wonder what the situation is now?
The seem to have stopped offering this service in early March 2024 when the Scottish average wait for an ambulance was 8 minutes and 36 seconds but for England, they stopped posting the average to replace it with the percentage waiting more than 30 minutes – 27%.
Talking-up Scotland / Scottish media fact checking is like shooting fish in a barrel 
“Poly” (sic) Toynbee???? Are there lots of them?? Is one not enough?
It is not so much that she wants to do down the SNP, like Harriet Harman she just thinks that Scots, Welsh, Irish and ‘provincials’ are just not able to make sensible decisions and that these should be left to people like her who know better.
This is very much the tenor of recent comments across the political spectrum about the legislation against stirring up hate. The ‘progressives’ of the Guardian, New Statesman, European, Observer, etc are as bombastic and condescending as those in the Telegraph, Daily Mail, Times, who endorse what JK Rowling says.
Alasdair Macdonald
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Indeed Alasdair….they are all making a concerted effort to undermine the bill and produce their versions of what it represents…..Polly ‘Labour friend’ Toynbee (not a Corbyn type of Labour friend Journo though)…..is another dismissive voice to add to the many other ‘Anglo’ Journos who present themselves as being ones supposedly well informed on politics in Scotland but who, like the Labour HQ leader, rely on tittle tattle sourced from the various political branch offices in Scotland to promote their own versions of (un)truths….
I remember one Olivia Utley….now on GB News…who when on SKY News paper review in 2017….said….that Ruth Davidson ‘won’ the election in Scotland when the Tories got 13 MP’s elected in the GE in 2017 in Scotland….then she corrected herself by saying “well they didn’t really win but they kind of won as they gained seats”….that’s the (low) level of contributors to the political debate that the MSM considers appropriate and qualified for them, as individuals, to gain a media platform…..of course Olivia’s ‘winner’ Ruth Davidson stood down as leader of the Tories in Scotland in August 2019 prior to the December 2019 GE with Boris Johnson as Tory leader and PM…..because she, Davidson, saw the ‘writing on the wall’ in Scotland for the Scottish (INO) Tories most certain demise (downfall) with Johnson as Tory leader & PM and Davidson did not want her fake media constructed reputation to be tarnished….but she, Davidson, instead cited that she wanted to spend more time with her family….and now since standing down as Tory leader in Scotland she is seen to be involved in an excessive amount of various different activities such as being a member of the HOL’s, a radio show on Times Radio and other involvements with some businesses in the UK…..so her reason for resigning now kinda seems a tad suspect…..and also self serving.
Oh what to do…..well apart from giving a wide berth to a majority of the so called media via radio & TV news programmes and always being mindful to ‘ Not believing everything that you see on TV and read in the newspapers’ as news…….and in some cases ‘Not believing anything you see on TV or read in the newspapers’ as news…..via the usual culprits who are often linked to #FakeNews…..well only that will keep you sane…..kinda….LOL
Have a nice day Alasdair
🙂
NMRN
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The LibDems are every bit as bad. They recently put out leaflets here in which the figure of 7,700,000 on waiting lists was quoted together with ambulance waiting times of 45 minutes! This was after the usual rubbishing of the SNP’s ‘record’ on the NHS. Last I heard Scotland’s population was ~ 5.5 million.
Blatant misrepresentation of the facts in the hope the ‘great unthinking’ in Scotland won’t notice that these figures refer to NHS England and are what NHS England themselves have reported. No doubt there are waiting lists in Scotland and not every ambulance will meet the deadline, often for very obvious reasons such as distance etc, but to do what they, the LibDems, are doing, is frankly appalling and they need to be called out, but never are so they just keep on going.
JH
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