By Professor John Robertson OBA
From Public Health Scotland today, 65.9% of those attending full Emergency Departments, in September 2024 were seen within 4 hours.1
From NHS England, the equivalent figure was 59.8%.2
NHS Scotland’s ED’s are thus 10.4% more efficient.
Sources:
- https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/healthcare-system/urgent-and-unscheduled-care/accident-and-emergency/interactive-charts/how-long-people-spend-in-ae/
- https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/ae-waiting-times-and-activity/
The gap is probably greater:
NHS Scotland performance likely to be even further ahead as five examples of cover-up and distortion by NHS England managers is revealed
We already know that, based on trusting the current published NHS England data, NHS Scotland’s A&E service is around 3 times better on the crucial 12 hour waits1 and twice as effective on cancer treatment waits.2
However, after decades of rampant managerialism, there have been a number of scandals where these managers, more concerned with image than truth, have introduced procedures to hide the facts.
First, back in 2018, it became apparent that NHS England had the dubious practice of restarting the clock after A&E patients are admitted whereas in Scotland counting continues from first arrival.3 See this:
Second and similarly, by stewartb, in April 2023:
After a long-running campaign by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM), NHS England has altered the way it reports monthly performance data on long waits by patients attending its major (Type 1) A&E departments.
In evidence to a House of Lords committee (on 19 January 2023), the prevailing practice of measuring 12-hour waits from the time of a ‘decision to admit’ (DTA) rather than from ‘time of arrival’ (TOA – as in Scotland) was described by Dr Adrian Boyle, President of the RCEM as “a fundamentally dishonest way of reporting data. It is hiding and doing our patients a disservice by minimising a very serious problem”.
NHS England has relented and published the first set of monthly data (for February 2023) on 12 hour waits measured from time of arrival at A&E to admission, transfer or discharge. This addresses an anomaly consistently highlighted here on TuS and just as consistently ignored by the corporate media and the BBC when reporting negatively on NHS Scotland.4
Third, on 10 October 2024, thanks to AR for alerting me:
This morning NHS England corrected a press release, a statistical notice and a dataset after Full Fact spotted an error in its waiting list data.
All of these originally said that the estimated number of patients waiting for non-emergency care in its referral to treatment (RTT) data fell by about 57,000 in August 2024, to 6.33 million.
In fact, this number rose by about 31,000 to 6.42 million.5
Fourth, 11 October 2024, thanks again to AR for alerting me:
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has included several graphs depicting hospital admission rates for Covid-19, flu and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in a now deleted post on X (formerly Twitter). But the problem is that these aren’t actually based on any real data.
The graphs were contained within a graphic posted on 10 October promoting their “Winter Virus Watch” and the release of more data on the UKHSA data dashboard that afternoon.6
Finally and perhaps most serious, so serious that even the BBC reported it, in February this year:
Patients are facing delays stuck on hidden waiting lists that do not show up in the official figures in England, a BBC News investigation reveals.
The published waiting list stands at 7.6 million – but the true scale of the backlog is thought to be much higher.
This is because patients needing ongoing care are not automatically included in those figures – even if they face major delays.7
There have been no reports of such practice in NHS Scotland. Do you think Lisa Summers would not tell us if there were?
I suspect these are not the only abuses by NHS England but are sufficient to reinforce the view that NHS England data often cannot be trusted, have been manipulated to reduce the shock and suggest strongly that NHS Scotland’s superior performance may be even more so, were the facts known.
Sources:
- https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/our-areas-of-work/acute-and-emergency-services/urgent-and-unscheduled-care/accident-and-emergency/interactive-charts/how-long-people-spend-in-ae/
- https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthcaresystem/articles/waitingtimesforcancertreatmentacrosstheuk/2024-08-23
- https://gss.civilservice.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/UK-Comparative-Waiting-Times-AE-final.xlsx
- https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/ae-waiting-times-and-activity/ae-attendances-and-emergency-admissions-2022-23/
- https://fullfact.org/health/nhs-england-rtt-waiting-list-error/?utm_source=Full+Fact+Newsletter&utm_campaign=3accc365a0-October&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-3accc365a0-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D
- https://fullfact.org/health/ukhsa-graphs-no-data-used/?utm_source=Full+Fact+Newsletter&utm_campaign=3accc365a0-October&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-3accc365a0-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D
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 'Albatraz' 
Once on an episode of BBC Debate night someone in the audience highlighted how bad the English NHS was with the Tory UK government in charge of it.
(This was after all of the Pro UK panel members on the programme were slating the SNP on their performance as the Scottish government and on how badly they supposdley ran the Scottish NHS)
In response to the audience member we then heard panel member, the Tory MSP Jamie Halcro Johnston, say something to the effect of ,that he was not interested in another nation’s (England’s) performance on their NHS , as he was a Scottish MSP so his focus was only on the performance of the Scottish NHS.
Well that’s a tad too convenient then , that is convenient for him and his party , where he can opine and critique the Scottish NHS yet members of the Scottish public cannot critique other UK nations NHS performances !
The same Scottish public who have a choice in elections in also voting for other political parties as well as the SNP, including his Tory party, but then, as the Scottish public, they are not supposed to (be allowed to) highlight how bad other NHS services are being run in other UK nations by other political parties , like say how bad the English NHS is being run by the Tories.
Says Who ?
Him as a Tory. Is that how it works then as in ‘Do as I say but not as I do’ ?
So he himself and his Tory colleagues in Scotland , and also those Tory MP’s who represent English constituencies at WM, are all allowed to constantly attack the Scottish government upon what they declare is the supposed poor performance of our Scottish NHS.
In relation to what ?
Comparable to what ?
The English NHS that formerly was so badly run by the Tory party !
Or the Welsh NHS that was and still is being badly run by the Labour party !
Also BTW, in the context of the UK , we recently heard a Labour shadow Health secretary , now the new Labour Health Secretary, admit that a UK government’s decisions on the NHS impacts the NHS in other nations within the UK that are governed by devolved governments.
I think Tory MSP Jamie Halcro Johnston was trying to pull a fast one there, I mean let’s be honest , surely your own position in criticising others on their performance is only strengthened by your own performance being far far better than those you criticise.
For that not to be the case then you are just a big hypocrite and a big Bobby dancer !
I mean if Jamie Halcro Johnson had his way it would be a Tory UK government running our Scottish NHS as badly as they run the English NHS, as he and his Tory colleagues do not even want devolution as they want a UK government to have the majority of the powers over Scotland. (to include I am sure the NHS).
#SNPBAD and also #ScottishNHSBad seems to roll far too easily off all of their pro UK tongues does it not !
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