By Professor John Robertson OBA
In the Guardian today but not a mention from the ever-loyal BBC Wales:
NHS patients in Wales will be allowed to travel to England to receive care for the first time ever under plans to be announced by the Welsh secretary on Monday.
Jo Stevens will tell the Labour conference in Liverpool that she is drawing up proposals to allow patients to travel between England and Wales to receive outpatient or elective treatment.
Stevens will say that the move will help reduce waiting lists on both sides of the border. But with NHS struggling in Wales even more than in England, experts say any movement is more likely to be from out of Wales, potentially placing further pressure on stretched NHS trusts in England.
BBC Scotland, of course, can find nothing comparable today.
Wonder why?
From Public Health Scotland, today [August 27th 2024], we see that 68.1% of patients waiting for treatment, in the quarter ending 30 June 2024, were seen within 18 weeks, up from 65.1% in the previous quarter.1
From the BBC in May 2024 (most recent data), we see reported a figure of 57% for NHS England.2
NHS Scotland is thus performing 14.2% on the 18 week waiting list target.
NHS Wales uses the easier 26 week target but still returns a figure of 57% seen within that time.3
Sources:
- https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/nhs-waiting-times-18-weeks-referral-to-treatment/nhs-waiting-times-18-weeks-referral-to-treatment-quarter-ending-30-june-2024
- https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-69070207
- https://www.gov.wales/nhs-activity-and-performance-summary-december-2023-and-january-2024-html
The ONS has recently published cancer waiting times data for the four UK nations.
Here are the data. You can make up your own mind.
Missing the 31 day and 62 day standards
- Northern Ireland – 12.1% and 66% (!!!)
- Wales – no data and 44.7% (!!!)
- England – 8.9% and 33.4%*
- Scotland – 5.9% and 29.6%
A&E?
After 27 years of uninterrupted rule, Labour in Wales have done this:
Wales does not have a functioning NHS and people do not have faith in it, claims the head of a doctors’ union. Dr Iona Collins, of the British Medical Association in Wales, said people suffering with chest pain “don’t even know” if an ambulance will come.
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
This has been kept very quite.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/labour-given-4m-from-tax-haven-based-hedge-fund-with-shares-in-oil-and-arms/
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I tell you what else there is “clear evidence” for.
That, in the recent GE, people did not vote For Labour but instead they voted against the Tories.
The “clear evidence” of this, is in how so many of those same voters are now only too quick and willing to now be against the same party (Labour) that they voted For in the recent GE, based on their, Labour UK’s, poor decisions since coming to power.
The other “clear evidence” that is apparent is that some in Scotland will once more probably vote again for that same party (Labour) in 2026, that they voted for in the recent GE, irrespective of all of the poor decisions and broken promises by Labour UK as the new UK government.
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