By Professor John Robertson:
Interviewed by BBC Scotland this morning Robert Jenrick claimed that there are ‘more people on NHS waiting lists in Scotland than in England.’
That’s a blatant lie but BBC Reporting Scotland’s editor deliberately included it and allowed for no contradiction even though the published evidence quite unambiguously refutes it.
Here it is:
First, 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.
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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, Scotland’s cancer waiting times dramatically better than England’s
By Professor John Robertson OBA
Today, BBC UK’s Nick Triggle has:
The cancers with longest treatment waits revealed
with the above graph for NHS England data.
I’ve added, where possible, equivalent Scottish data. While skin and prostate/kidney waiting times do seem slightly longer in Scotland, in 5 key areas, including breast, lung and liver cancers, NHS Scotland ‘s performance is dramatically better, saving thousands of lives.
Triggle only mentions Scotland once:
See what he’s done there? Scotland, on that measure alone, seems worse than England because he is careful not to tell us how close the two countries were to the target over that period. See these two graphs:
On the 62-day standard (referral to treatment begins), England has had significantly more than 30% waiting longer (less than 70% seen on time), since late 2021, while Scotland has always had less than 30% waiting (more than 70% seen) in the same period.
On the 31-day standard (decision to treat to treatment begins), England has had nearly 10% waiting longer (90% seen on time), since 2023, while Scotland has always had well under 10%, around 5%, waiting (95% seen on time) in the same period.
Sources:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy948p4j5wo
Third, Significant increase in those seen within 18 weeks to remain 14% better than NHS England
From Public Health Scotland, today, 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
Why does this target matter and matter more perhaps than the one-year target often much politicised to attack NHS Scotland?
It’s kind of obvious. If you have a life-threatening condition you really need to be seen quickly and the 18 week target is designed to ensure that happens. If you have a chronic non-life threatening condition, like arthritis, tough though that may be, a resource-strapped health service cannot always be expected to treat that in the shorter term.
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
Fourth, Nearly 10% more are on the overall NHS waiting list in England than in Scotland
On the 28th May 2024, according to BBC Scotland:
NHS waiting lists in Scotland have reached a record high, the latest figures show. Public Health Scotland recorded more than 690,000 waits for appointments or treatment for non-urgent care as of 31 March.
According to the Health Service Journal, yesterday:
In April the English referral-to-treatment waiting list grew slightly by 34,000 to 7.57 million patient pathways. These are the last figures to be published before the general election, meaning the pre-election waiting list is 358,000 larger than the figures available when prime minister Rishi Sunak said “NHS waiting lists will fall”.
All things being equal, with 690 000 waiting in Scotland, you’d expect 6 900 000 waiting in England but it was actually 7 570 000, or 8.85% higher.
8.85% of the 7 570 000 is 66 945 so nearly 67 000 people in England would not be on the NHS waiting list if the SNP had been in government there for 17 years.
Sources:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqlly95k5l0o
Enough?
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Talking-up Scotland 
If it is a “blatant lie” then the SNP should be complaining to the BBC for allowing it , as a statement, to be broadcast without it being challenged at the time of the interview or after the interview in them , the BBC, stating it was not accurate and then quoting the actual stats that would clearly contradict Jenrick’s fake assertion.
Of course if the BBC were challenged by the SNP or a viewer will this then just be another time when it is, as a supposed ‘error’, filed away in the Clarifications and corrections section of the BBC website (where many of the public are oblivious to it’s existence on their website) and where no ‘on air’ retraction and apology is given by BBC Reporting Scotland.
Is it not quite amazing how , with so many unchallenged lies being broadcast by the BBC in respect to the SNP, Scotland and it’s government, so many ‘others’ in the UK said it was wrong for us to protest outside Pacific Quay at the Nick Robinson ‘error made’ by him in 2014 in his report on BBC News in respect to Alex Salmond.
How else do we then communicate the absolute horror of misreporting via BBC Scotland in their news output both here and actually elsewhere in the UK too , especially in respect to Scottish politics , where mainly they focus their lies upon us who support independence and also upon the political parties supportive of it too.
Sick of it as a situation in Scotland and also sick of them promoting their fake news.
So here’s a mini Bio of Robert Jenrick who thinks in relation to our goevrnment he can sit on a moral high horse as does the BBC here also think as well.
He was appointed and then sacked by Boris Johnson as Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government.
He then became the Minister of State for Health under Liz Truss when she was Tory PM (for what turned out to be a disaster and also a short term premiership).
In 2023 resigned from his position as Minister of State for Immigration over “strong disagreements” with the government’s Rwanda Asylum plan arguing that it did not go far enough to tackle illegal immigration, and spent the remainder of Sunak’s premiership on the backbenches.
(Obviously Jenrick knew, or sensed that Sunak was going to soon be ‘toast’ as party leader and so he , Jenrick, was trying to promote himself as someone who was ‘principled’ enough to resign his ministerial post but also clearly demonstrating his lack of humanity and lack of moral code).
In February 2016 Channel 4 news alleged overspending in Jenrick’s 2014 by-election victory, Nottingham Police took no action as too much time had passed since the alleged offence.
In March 2017 his constituency of Newark was one of the constituencies identified by the Electoral commission in a report they released showing spending allegations at a number of elections ( the 2014 Newark by-election being one of those times).
Jenrick was criticised as having failed to deliver on promises and take concrete action with regards to housing safety following the Grenfell Tower fire, when he was Tory Housing secretary.
In 2020 the newspapers reported that Jenrick had charged taxpayers more than £100,000 for “a third home” in his constituency of Newark, that he appeared to use only rarely.
Also in June 2020 Jenrick faced questions over his links to a Conservative donor after it emerged that he met an Israeli businessman, with an interest in the future of a multibillion-pound project that Jenrick, then exchequer secretary to the Treasury, was overseeing. Jenrick later said that the Israeli businessman was a family friend.
The same month, it was reported that Conservative councillors approved a planning application for an extension to Jenrick’s townhouse despite officials objecting to the scheme three times over its damaging impact in a conservation area.
In January 2020, Jenrick approved a £1 billion luxury housing development of 1,500 homes on Westferry Road, Isle of Dogs, proposed by a Conservative Party donor and well-known businessman. Jenrick approved the scheme on 14 January knowing that an approval by that date would enable the Tory party donor to avoid having to pay a council-imposed infrastructure levy of between £30 and £50 million. A Government planning inspector had advised against permitting the scheme, as it would not deliver enough affordable housing and as the height of the tower would be detrimental to the character of the area also Other civil servants had also advised Jenrick not to approve the scheme.
I could go on and on, but really come on this is who BBC Reporting Scotland thinks is entitled to pass judgement and quote wonky stats in respect to our better performance from our government compared to his country’s NHS when ran by his Tory government when they were in power.
Cast stones, without sin etc etc but then that is what the BBC does as we were told that is their job. (as in allow rogues to opine upon us , and our public services, while ignoring their own many reported historical scandals as a Tory MP and Tory government minister).
Hilarious is it not that he, Jenrick, with so much bad history as a politician should then be in the final two of the current (as in yet another one of many) Tory leadership elections yet also it just seems for them so very very very apt!
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There are more people on NHS waiting lists in England (6.33m) than the total population of Scotland (5,.78m).
From the British Medical Association, refering to NHS waiting lists in England:
“The latest Referral to Treatment (RTT) figures for Augst 2024 show:
The waiting list stood at 7.64 million cases, consisting of approximately 6.33 million individual patients waiting for treatment”
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The BBC that operates in Scotland is a front for “British” colonial propaganda, peppered with non-Scots, run by non-Scots and infiltrated by security services plants. The independence movement should attack its bias and selective “news” every day of the week, and twice on Sundays.
gavinochiltree
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Like his Westminster Labour compatriots , I guess that Jenrick only relies on his Scottish Tory colleagues to provide propaganda on SNP-run Scotland . He , like Starmer & co , couldn’t find Scotland with a GPS , a Road Map and a native guide !
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They don’t need to know m j. As long as our riches pour South, they are happy.
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