By Professor John Robertson
In April 2024:
BMA Scotland, headed up by Dr Iain Kennedy, who has now shed the union flag on his twitter account, have a piece on consultant vacancies all over the media from 06:30 this morning on BBC Scotland. They’ll have had this one oven-ready for some time now. Why today. From the real BMA in London today:
The BMA England GP committee has warned health service officials that the profession is ‘now in dispute’ with NHS England following the overwhelming vote to reject the 2024/25 contract.
Is the profession in dispute with NHS Scotland? The silence talks.
He’s at again today, dressed like the Labour candidate for somewhere with his red tie, headlining on Reporting Scotland that there’s a crisis and a two tier system in Scotland. It’s not on the the BBC Scotland website, so its a feed, and the rest of the NHS seems not to be in crisis on BBC England, Wales or Northern Ireland.
Kennedy is a Unionist rogue and Reporting Scotland friend. Here’s what the real BMA said about Scotland in July 2023
BMA leaders Dr Robert Laurenson and Dr Vivek Trivedi said:
Today marks the start of the longest single walkout by doctors in the NHS’s history, but this is still not a record that needs to go into the history books.
We can call this strike off today if the UK Government will simply follow the example of the government in Scotland and drop their nonsensical precondition of not talking whilst strikes are announced and produce an offer which is credible to the doctors they are speaking with.
The pay offer on the table to junior doctors in Scotland and how it was reached throws into sharp relief the obstinate approach being taken by the Prime Minister and the Health Secretary, Steve Barclay.
The Health Secretary has said there can be no talks while strikes are planned – Scotland has proved him wrong. He said above 5% wasn’t realistic – Scotland proved him wrong. He refused to even acknowledge the concept of pay restoration – Scotland proved this is not only possible but essential.
The BMA leaders said talks have to be resumed, adding:
The government’s refusal to talk with junior doctors in England who have strikes planned is out of keeping with all norms of industrial action.
Doctors have a right to expect that as in Scotland, and as in many other recent industrial disputes, talks will continue right up to the last minute to try and reach a deal without the need to strike.
The complete inflexibility we see from the UK government today is baffling, frustrating and ultimately destructive for everyone who wants waiting lists to go down and NHS staffing numbers to go up.
The government has missed chance after chance to provide a credible offer and potentially bring to an end the industrial action by junior doctors in England and whilst there are differences between junior doctors and governments in England and Scotland, the UK government has far more financial freedom to give doctors what they deserve.https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2023/jul/13/doctors-strike-nhs-rishi-sunak-pay-uk-politics-live
As for the crisis, I could, as you know post pages here but let this suffice:
Important note for some readers – England has 10 times the population so to be fair to them, where they are not already in the form of percentages, I’ve divided their waiting lists by 10.
All sources below.
- In April 2024, the waiting list for cardiac (heart) surgery in England [i] was almost twice as long as in Scotland.[ii]
- In April 2024, the overall waiting list for all procedures in England [iii] was almost twice as long as in Scotland.[iv]
- In March 2024, 8% of patients waited more than 12 hours in A&E. In England it was 13.2% and in Wales 15.5%. [v] England does not publish over-8 hour waits.
- In April 2024, 64.1% were seen within 4 hours in full emergency (ED) departments in Scotland.[vi] In England it was 60.4%.[vii]
- According to BBC Health in August 2023, 21% of cancer patients waited longer than the 62-day target for treatment in Scotland. In England, it was 36%, in Wales 43% and in N Ireland 58%! [viii]
- In January 2024, the average wait time for an ambulance was 8 mins 46 seconds.[ix] In England in December 2023, it was 38 mins [x], 4 times as long!
Yes, I know, drug deaths.
[i] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/apr/11/number-waiting-for-nhs-care-for-serious-heart-problems-in-england-rises-fivefold
[ii] https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/24091977.cardiology-waiting-lists-at-highest-level-record
[iii] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/apr/03/almost-10-million-people-in-england-could-be-on-nhs-waiting-list
[iv] https://publichealthscotland.scot/publications/nhs-waiting-times-stage-of-treatment/stage-of-treatment-waiting-times-inpatients-day-cases-and-new-outpatients-quarter-ending-31-december-2023/
[v] https://rcem.ac.uk/data-statistics/
[vi] https://publichealthscotland.scot/our-areas-of-work/acute-and-emergency-services/urgent-and-unscheduled-care/accident-and-emergency/#section-3-2
[vii] https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/ae-waiting-times-and-activity/ae-attendances-and-emergency-admissions-2024-25/
[viii] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-63573718
Talking-up Scotland / Facts on NHS, Crime, ferries and everything else you can think of 
Good to see Dr Iain Kennedy sticking to his hypocritical oath . Did I get that right ?
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John,This story appeared in the print version of the P@J but cant open it online I am sure you could fix that so all can see it.
Buckie offshore worker ‘feels like he won the lottery’ after hip replacement at new Inverness centre ‘saves his career’
Summary by Press & Journal
The National Treatment Centre- Highland in Inverness saw more than 28,500 patients come through the door in its first year.
Kennedy will not be reporting this.
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‘I am sure you could fix that so all can see it.’
Who me? I have the tech skills of a 73 year-old
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Just wait till you’re 84 and you have to replace your well used elderly PC with a Windows 11 machine who tries to impose Edge, Bing and artificial intelligence on you at every opportunity.
Having to upgrade or replace a few old programs that won’t run on W11 only to find that the new ones have a completely different layout, drop down menues have been “simplified and rationalised with many new functions” that means you won’t recognise the Home screen and absolutely nothing is where it used to be and often does something different.
After a couple of hours you will be convinced that you are fighting a virus that has installed an evil artificial intelligence app somewhere in your system.
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distraction maybe for junior doctor strikes in England ?
Or even fact that Westminster n English NHS wasted £1.4 billion on just 1faiped PPE contract. No doubt, Scotland was charged it’s £140 million expenses..
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cll476qzm85o
dottieb
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They’ve been pushing this story for at least the last two years, but it’s appeared today in the Herald, Telegraph, Express etc as Kennedy is apparently going to say this in a Union speech in Belfast, where I’m sure it will generate many WTFs…
The HMS James Cook website appearance is in the ‘what the papers say’ segment, with the Herod’s McGargle headlining the front page – Just do a search on the headline and you’ll find loads of such ‘Scotland only’ articles…
The polls can’t be good if they’re that desperate…
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O/T There have been some escoriating assessments of the Tory and Labour manifestos for the upcoming General Election. They include the one below from the establishment-revered Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS).
When reading the extracts, written from a London/England-centric UK perspective, reflect on just how ‘distant’ – how lacking in effective agency — Scotland’s electorate and government are in all of this! The IFS is essentially arguing that major fixes are required for a failing UK state but that the two main parties are in denial for partisan electoral reasons. Within this Union, Scotland’s ability to influence the nature of these fixes will be minor to non-existent. We need to chart our own future and make it in Scotland!
This from Paul Johnson, Director of the IFS on 24 June (my emphasis):
‘Manifestos leave voters guessing over policy on tax and spending, and on future size and shape of state.
‘Debt is at its highest level in more than 60 years. Taxes are at near enough the highest ever level seen in the UK. They have risen more over this parliament than over any other since the second world war. Spending has also risen: the fourth largest increase per year in public spending as a share of national income, and biggest under a Conservative government.
‘Yet public services are visibly struggling. Despite these high tax levels, spending on many public services will likely need to be cut over the next five years if government debt is not to ratchet ever upwards or unless taxes are increased further.’
And: ‘These raw facts are largely ignored by the two main parties in their manifestos. That huge decisions over the size and shape of the state will need to be taken, that those decisions will, in all likelihood, mean either higher taxes or worse public services, you would not guess from reading their prospectuses or listening to their promises. They have singularly failed even to acknowledge some of the most important issues and choices to have faced us for a very long time. As the population ages these choices will become harder, not easier. We cannot wish them away.’
Adding: ‘The “conspiracy of silence” about all of this has been maintained. Regardless of who takes office following the general election, they will – unless they get lucky – soon face a stark choice. Raise taxes by more than they have told us in their manifesto. Or implement cuts to some areas of spending. Or borrow more and be content for debt to rise for longer. That is the trilemma. What will they choose? The manifestos have left us guessing.
‘So in these opening remarks I am simply not going to engage with these so-called “fully costed” manifestos on their own terms. Their proposals on tax, benefits and public service spending would be barely enough to detain us in analysing a modest one-year fiscal event. They certainly don’t answer the big questions facing us over a five-year parliament.’
In his concluding remarks: ‘ … on the big issues over which governments have direct control – on how they will change tax, welfare, public spending – the manifestos of the main parties provide thin gruel indeed. On 4 July we will be voting in a knowledge vacuum.’
Source: https://ifs.org.uk/events/general-election-2024-ifs-manifesto-analysis
So what’s worse? Scotland’s electorate voting in a ‘knowledge vacuum’ or Scotland’s electorate voting for a Union parliament in which their chosen MPs can have little or no influence or impact on the most important policy decisions? How bad is it when Scotland experiences BOTH?
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John, grateful thanks for doing what you do day after day to expose thuggish, ideological purveyors of Tory propaganda like BMA Scotland head Kennedy. You are a one man rebuttal system made lethal thanks to your erudition, analytical mind, ability make deep, national and international comparisons and convey with that deliciously unforgiving wit. All strength.
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