By Professor John Robertson:
Today, the Express is headlining – Scots dying as A&E crisis worsens every day based on the weekly 4 hour waits for week ending 6 October.
A simple look at the above graph is clear – post-pandemic with increasing numbers (122 000 in April 2022 to 143 000 in May 2024) attending, a dramatic increase in those waiting beyond target times but since January 2022, a clear stabilisation and even fall from that peak with significantly fewer waiting over 12 hours in December 2024 (42 000) than in December 2022 (49 000)
Missing from the Express story is assessment of ultra long delays, associated with deaths more than the 4 hour waits.
First, NHS England:
THREE times as many wait more than 12 hours in England’s A&E departments
NHS England, Type one A&E, for May 2024, 138 770 waiting more than 4 hours and 42 555 waiting more than 12.
59.7% seen within 4 hours.
NHS Scotland, Type ED full A&E, for May 2024, 9 252 waiting more than 4 hours and 1 350 waiting more than 12.
66.7% seen within 4 hours
So:
All things being equal NHS England with 10 times the population might have been expected to have 92 520 waiting more than 4 hours, but had 138 770, 50% more.
And 13 500 waiting more than 12 hours but had 42 555, more than THREE times as many.
As for the A&E 4 hour waiting time, NHS Scotland is 11.7% faster.
Sources:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/ae-waiting-times-and-activity/
Second, Wales:
In Labour Wales A&E nearly twice as many wait more than 8 hours and three times as many wait more than 12 hours
By stewartb
Latest update for the Labour politicians in Scotland who constantly berate the Scottish Government and NHS Scotland on A&E waiting times:
Latest on waits in the main A&E departments in the NHS in Wales – from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (https://rcem.ac.uk/summer-provides-no-respite-for-over-stretched-emergency-departments/ )
1) ’44.1% of patients (more than 2/5) waited four hours or longer (up 10.6% on April 2024)’ – so just 58.6% discharged, transferred or admitted within four hours. The RCEM reports ‘the number of patients having to wait more than four hours has almost doubled since 2017’.
2) ’23.2% (more than 1/5) of people waited more than eight hours (up 0.5% on last month)’ – ‘for eight hour waits it has tripled’
3) ’14.5% of patients (more than 1/7) had to endure waits of more than 12 hours (up 0.3% from April)’ – ‘for the longest waits of 12 hours or more the number of people as gone up four times’.
For comparison, the RCEM reported on performance data for Scotland ’s main emergency departments during April 2024 :
– 64% of patients were treated, discharged or admitted within the target time of four hours (Wales = 58.6%)
– 12.7% of attendees waited more than eight hours (Wales = 23.2%)
– 5.7% of attendees waited more than 12 hours (Wales = 14.5%).
The difference in performance between NHS Wales and NHS Scotland’s emergency departments is marked. To what question is Labour the right, the best answer for Scotland?
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
Basic arithmetic seems to be beyond those pretending to be journalists, percentages must be like whoa, that’s like rocket science!
Golfnut
LikeLike
It is not beyond them. They are willfully distorting data to mislead.
LikeLike
Unrelenting brainwashing, which, unfortunately, some Scots still believe, whither through ignorance, or a long held belief in the British State.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The Scottish Daily Express front page article – by its Scottish Political Reporter – is a disgraceful example of misrepresentation. It seeks to link excess deaths following a visit to A&E with NHS Scotland missing its four hour standard of 95% of patients being discharged, transferred or admitted within four hours.
The postulated causal link between an increase in excess deaths and A&E attendance advanced by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) is concerned primarily with time periods of over eight and more significantly, over 12 hours. The Express fails to make this clear despite there being multiple and diverse published sources explaining it.
From the RCEM Acute Insight Series: Crowding and its Consequences (November 2021): ‘In 2021 so far, of those who waited 8-12 hours in an ED, there have been 303 excess deaths in Scotland and 709 excess deaths in Wales. In England and Northern Ireland, if we assume that the harm suffered between eight to twelve hours continues in patients who stay longer than 12 hours, then 4519 excess deaths occurred in England and 566 excess deaths occurred in Northern Ireland in 2020-21. This may be an underestimate, as stays longer than 12 hours would be expected to confer a greater risk of death.’
BMJ website News item (18 November 2021): ‘Overcrowding and long delays in A&E caused over 4000 deaths last year in England, analysis shows’.
‘The mortality figure was calculated from findings from the NHS’s Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) programme, which found that one in 67 patients staying in an emergency department for 12 hours came to excess harm, and hospital episode statistics (for 2020-21), which measure numbers of stays of 12 hours from time of arrival.’The relationship between long stays in A&E and excess deaths was investigated by ‘FullFact’ (23 January 2023) – see https://fullfact.org/health/accident-emergency-delays-excess-deaths/
‘The RCEM told us that to come up with its original estimate it looked at the monthly number of patients spending over 12 hours in A&E for all four nations to make the data comparable. For England it used a monthly estimate for England derived from the annual data for 2021/22. It then divided this UK-wide figure by 72 to estimate the number of deaths in a month, and then divided again to come up with weekly totals.’
The relationship between long stays in A&E and excess deaths was investigated by the fact checking service ‘FullFact’ (23 January 2023) – see https://fullfact.org/health/accident-emergency-delays-excess-deaths/
‘The RCEM told us that to come up with its original estimate it looked at the monthly number of patients spending over 12 hours in A&E for all four nations to make the data comparable. For England it used a monthly estimate for England derived from the annual data for 2021/22. It then divided this UK-wide figure by 72 to estimate the number of deaths in a month, and then divided again to come up with weekly totals.’
It’s hard to see this a anything other than a blatant attempt by the Express to deceive – and arguably demonstrate outright disrespect towards – its readers in Scotland. The same front page was reproduced on the Scotland page of the BBC News website – deception amplified as a public service?
LikeLiked by 1 person