By Professor John Robertson
Fiona Bruce tonight, asked the same question she had asked Kate Forbes last week:
Why is it in Scotland there are 7 000 people who’ve waited more than two years for treatment. In England it’s just over 200.
To my amazement, Forbes was not ready for it and neither was Swinney tonight.
Here it is again.
The UK Government and NHS England have been sneaky again, as they did when they began restarting the clock for A&E patients, after they had been triaged.
They knew how the media feasted on stories of patients waiting more than two years and regardless of the seriousness of the cases, threw money at them, rushing them through private hospitals and at the expense of other targets. Scotland did not do that.
Key point – Those waiting more than two years, no doubt in pain and with limited lives, are not, by definition at risk of dying from their problems.
Far more important, in saving lives, is the 18 week waiting list and, on this Scotland does far far better than England.
From the BMJ on February 10 2023:
More than three million patients waited longer than 18 weeks for treatment in England in December, the highest number on record, show data for the NHS in England. In November 2022 a total of 2 902 274 waited 18 weeks or longer, and in December this figure rose to 3 051 661, the data on referral to treatment times show.1
All things being equal, in the same month, December 2022, you’d expect Scotland to have 305 000 but in fact it had only 20 448 waiting over 18 weeks.
14.52 times more, per head of population, waiting longer than 18 weeks in England than in Scotland.
Source:
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
SNP politicians especially Swinney needa kick up the backside lazy sods not being prepared for questions that are almost certainly going to be asked.Waken up you idiots do your job properly and represent us efficiently if you cant do that GET OUT buzz off .
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Felt sorry for Kate Forbes when she was side swiped by this but John Swinney should have been ready for it, black mark against him.
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Ok, fine to say that in Scotland the focus is on urgent/life threating conditions rather than those on less urgent and life threating conditions…but wouldn’t that be apparent from lower mortality/excess death figures? That doesn’t appear to be the case
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Scripted the first time by FB as a trip-up question to distract, I’m surprised to hear she has repeated it – I haven’t seen this episode, so have no idea if it was as out of left field as the last time when she did it to Kate Forbes, in short not the subject at hand.
I’d question FB’s framing in any instance – She cites it as a “discrepancy” when it is nothing of the sort, it is a numeric difference in where something is recorded, something we’ve seen before with NHSE figures.
The inference of Bruce’s question is failure to treat – There are a great many cases where the agreed way forward as discussed between the cancer specialists and patients is to delay treatment. There is no way in hell there are only 200 such patients in a population of 57 million in England, it’s absurd.
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it’s the old Brillo technique, read out some dodgy stats, then base the question on a false premise.
if Forbes and then Swinney were not ready for these dodgy type questions,
then they need to get better advisors, and go into these political charades well informed of what’s going to pan out.
and be ready.
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We’ll never change the ‘English mindset’, that nothing is allowed to be better, anywhere, other than Engerland – but the SNP reps have to be more aggressive with their responses to these biased attacks from people like Bruce.
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Well said it has always been the same England is right and better and it is really time the SNP got their act together and challenge these Unionist presenters and reporters we are to soft with them.As for last night all we got from Stammer was a of waffle did not notice Bruce give him a hard time has she changed from Tory to Lab now she has seen the writing on the wall
SNP for me.
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This morning on Radio Scotland they even tried to downplay the QT audience applause for John Swinney by saying in a general election debate he is able to talk about wider issues rather than the Scot Gov domestic record. It would kill them to admit that maybe some English people would like to see Scottish policies implemented in England
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Found the segment, only this time FB didn’t use the interruption method, the took a preset question from a member of the audience, and before Swinney got to answer she read this out from the lectern… Then later raised it again as the discrepancy despite it not being the question….Blatant propaganda games being played…
https://youtu.be/3s4_fClG3J0&t=2607
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I didn’t think the audience looked very impressed with her ‘technique’ either.
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It’s much as the Sarah Smith days in Scotland, English folk are increasingly aware the media is far from ‘impartial’, the ‘once seen cannot be unseen’ propaganda experience….
From an Indy perspective the audience applause tells you all you need to know, the political/media class cannot edit out the sympathy for our plight…
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O/T Having seen some clips of English fans acting regarding the manager and tactics after the draw with Denmark I wonder what it would be if it had been 5-1 for Denmark riots in Germany ?
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Who remembers this about Fiona Bruce.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3060058/Fiona-Bruce-BBC-payroll-broadcaster-s-pledge-clamp-stars-paid-private-companies.html
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O/T Many will recall the great big policy wheeze of the Tories in 2019 and since – ‘levelling-up’. A just published report contains interesting insights:
Farquharson et al (June 2024) How do the last five years measure up on levelling up? IFS report R323.
The IFS report explains (with my emphasis): ‘Five years ago, then Prime Minister Boris Johnson made ‘levelling up’ a central plank of the Conservative Party’s bid for re-election, with a manifesto pledge to ‘level up every part of the UK’.’
The IFS report sets out to examine progress towards the Tories’ 12 levelling-up missions, including five that were explicitly UK-wide i.e. included Scotland, in their scope. – ‘living standards’; ‘R&D’; ‘digital connectivity’; ‘well-being’; ‘housing’ – specifically ‘homeownership rates among 25- to 34-year-olds’.
On Mission 2. Research and development
This was the stated ‘mission’: ‘By 2030, domestic public investment in R&D outside the Greater South East will increase by at least 40%, and over the Spending Review period by at least one third. This additional government funding will seek to leverage at least twice as much private sector investment over the long term to stimulate innovation and productivity growth.’
This what the IFS reports: ‘Public investment in R&D is split between R&D done by the government and R&D funded by the government but performed by businesses and higher education institutions.
‘Just over half of total public spending on research and development in the UK (and 60% of R&D carried out by government) is performed by organisations based in the greater South East (GSE), an area that includes London, Oxford and Cambridge.
‘The share of government expenditure on R&D performed outside the greater South East fell slightly between 2018 and 2021, from 39% to 37%.
‘For 2022, data are only available for business expenditure on R&D; here, R&D spending fell by £3.1 billion outside the greater South East, despite increasing by £1.8 billion in the greater South East.’
Recall from the ‘mission’ statement the significance of the use of government funding of R&D to leverage business investment. That government funding – funding in the control of government agencies – has remained overwhelmingly directed towards London and the SE is telling: to those that have – and have had for a very long time – more will (always) be given in this unequal UK.
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On a related topic (?) and for interest:
Much of UK public funding of research is funnelled through a non-departmental public body, UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and its nine constituent research councils.
In a description on the UKRI website on how it is governed, there is this: ‘Each of the nine councils has Council members who play a critical role in our strategy development and governance. Council members work with their Executive Chair to deliver their council’s aims and objectives and to support UKRI’s overall mission.‘ (my emphasis)
One of the curious things about UKRI – founded as recently as 2018 – is that in addition to research councils with UK-wide remits (e.g. the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council , ESRC) , the structure and governance of UKRI also includes a body – a ‘council’ – termed ‘Research England’.
The Executive Chair. of Research England sits on the Executive Committee of UKRI. Indeed the UKRI website emphasises the role of Research England here:
‘Our nine councils, delivering together – Our nine councils work together in innovative ways to deliver an ambitious agenda, drawing on our great depth and breadth of expertise and the enormous diversity of our portfolio.’
And later: ‘Whether through research council grants, quality-related block grants from Research England, or grants and wider support for innovative businesses from Innovate UK, we work with our stakeholders to understand the opportunities and requirements of all the different parts of the research and innovation landscape, maintaining the health, breadth and depth of the system.’
Just more close and direct access to UKRI’s strategic and policy making from England’s university funding council at the core of UKRI’s governance?
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Fooled once. Fooled again. Does anyone believe this woman. Westminster lies. The BBC Westminster propaganda unit. Anyone who votes unionist will get nothing. They have been warned time and time again.
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I’ll be voting SNP… And I’ll be continuing to watch the BBC. Fiona Bruce did nothing wrong on Thursday night as far as I’m concerned, and she could hardly be described as showing any favouritism towards Starmer. In fact, in my opinion, she destroyed both him and Sunak during their questioning – that’s the worst I’ve seen of Starmer so far. NHS questions aside, John Swinney otherwise did really well and deserved the round of applause he got. Some SNP supporters have a real issue however seeing the SNP questioned over something they’ve done wrong. You could argue he was lucky it wasn’t an all Scottish audience as I suspect he would have been asked other difficult questions than just the NHS one.
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Starmer will soon be paying her wages. Duplicity and deceit. Colluding those who have most to gain.
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John Swinney,Independence has been my honest view all my life….Look at her face when he said this nasty person she is.
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Anas Sarwar stumbled all over the place when finally pressed on GB Energy. He confirmed it won’t produce any energy. It’s a public/private finance vehicle [PFI]. It’s heavily reliant on private cash and also needs the private sector to upgrade the grid. He has no idea how much cash is needed. It is, in effect, an attempt to sell off Scotland’s renewable resources to the private sector. There’s no chance it will create 69,000 jobs in Scotland.
I have saved this for when we hold the Scottish elections to remind them about the billions of money that was promised.
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Press and Journalhttps://www.pressandjournal.co.uk › news › national-trea…
This is behind a pay wall but it is in print version…You wont hear Sarwar or DRoss speak about it as it is a very good SNP story.
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Should have posted this
New £48m NHS Highland National Treatment Centre
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