By Professor John Robertson OBA:
From BBC Health, yesterday:
Chancellor sets out new funding for extra NHS appointments
then spells it out:
The chancellor has said more funding will be provided to help the NHS deliver the extra 40,000 appointments and procedures per week – or more than two million a year – promised in the Labour manifesto.
An extra 40 000, 2 million more every year? Big numbers, or are they Primary 7?
From NHS England on 25 April 2024:
GP teams delivered almost 30 million appointments for patients last month (March 2024), up almost a quarter on the same period before the pandemic, new data shows today. New NHS data published today shows there were around 29.8 million appointments delivered by GPs and their teams in just one month, compared with 24.2 million in March 2019 – an increase of 5.6 million (23.1%). And on average, thanks to the primary care recovery plan, the NHS is now offering more than 1.4 million GP appointments every working day. https://www.england.nhs.uk/2024/04/millions-more-gp-appointments-in-march-than-before-pandemic/
So, 1.4 million every working day? 7 million per week? 40 000 extra is 0.57%. Not really transformative, I suspect for the 7.7 million waiting:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/oct/25/private-healthcare-boom-fuelled-by-nhs-waiting-lists
They’ll need to go a bit fast to narrow the gap with NHS Scotland. See:
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.
about:blank
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
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:
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?
Support Scots Independent, Scotland’s oldest pro-independence newspaper and host of the OBA (Oliver Brown Award) at: https://scotsindependent.scot/FWShop/shop/
The Oliver Brown Award for advancing the cause of Scotland’s self respect, previously awarded to Dr Philippa Whitford, Alex Salmond and Sean Connery: https://scotsindependent.scot/?page_id=116
About Oliver Brown, the first Scottish National Party candidate to save his deposit in a Parliamentary election: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Brown_(Scottish_activis
Talking-up Scotland 
Wes Streeting was being interviewed (badly) by a BBC Breakfast host this morning where she asked him about staffing levels in the English NHS (though she did not actually specifically say the “English” NHS but instead said “the NHS”).
He side swerved that Q, as in avoided it, by continuing to answer the previous asked Q which included some of the same comments he gave in his previous answer !
Did she then voraciously pursue an answer to that Q from him on the reduced staffing levels in the NHS ?
Nope she did not.
Remember Brexit, which Labour supports, was a huge factor in the declining NHS staffing levels in the whole UK , including Scotland (though to listen to Labour Scotland was apparently not impacted by this at all via Brexit, instead they, Labour state, that no public health worker (British or otherwise) wants to work in Scotland all because of the #SNPBAD…..meanwhile in England and Wales and their NHS…. etc etc).
Is it not laughable that Labour, like other parties supportive of Brexit, are suggesting we should train more ‘British’ doctors as opposed to the UK still being apparently far too reliant on doctors trained and sourced from elsewhere, like say the EU.
Of course the average person in the UK is supposed to forget how long a student doctor trains for, that is enough time for even more people in the UK , including in Scotland, to die waiting for more new doctors to be trained here in the UK.
That is Labour’s “British Jobs for British workers” which as far as the NHS is concerned may also result in more British deaths, to include also in Scotland , all because of a very British dictated and dominant Brexit as endorsed by and also continued by the new Labour UK government.
(Of course let’s not forget all of these subliminal and explicit warnings on the NHS, by the new Labour government and also the Labour Health Secretary , to it being “broken” and so needing “fixed” is an excuse for them , Labour, to pave the way- as in to introduce- even more privatisation within the NHS).
After all those Private Healthcare companies that donated to Labour prior to the UK GE, including to Wes Streeting, now need to see a return from Labour as the new UK government on the donations that they made to Labour that then helped them, Labour, win the UK GE in July 2024).
Read Peter Geoghegan’s book called “Democracy for sale: Dark money and Dirty Politics”.
Mind you it seems some in Scotland as voters were either oblivious to all of this or were willing to (yet again) excuse (and forgive) Labour in kidding themselves, as voters, in the recent GE that this time it will be different with Labour so they relented and gave Labour their vote.
What’s that quote again.
“‘Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results“
When will some in Scotland finally learn that with the Labour party ?
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