By Professor John Robertson OBA
From Public Health Scotland, today:
The number of people estimated to be waiting on a social care assessment to enable them to live independently at home or in the community was 6,027 on 4 November 2024. The estimated number of people assessed and waiting for a care at home package was 3,281 on 4 November 2024. https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/people-requiring-a-social-care-assessment-and-care-at-home-services/people-requiring-a-social-care-assessment-and-care-at-home-services-26-november-2024/
So, that’s around 9 300 in total waiting for assessment and/or waiting for a care at home package.
So, in England that should be around 93 000?
It’s not. It’s nowhere near as few. It’s between 400 000 and 500 000, around 5 times as many! https://www.cqc.org.uk/publication/state-care-202122/access#:~:text=Leaving%20aside%20those%20who%20said%20they%20didn’t%20need%20anything,unmet%20and%20under%2Dmet%20needs.
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Talking-up Scotland 
ah but wait till the assisted dying bill is passed,
the care homes will soon get that waiting list down.
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O/T Seems they are not only doing political journalism in BBC Wales differently from BBC Scotland but opponents of the government in Cardiff may behave differently too.
The BBC News website in its Wales section today (November 26) had this headline about NHS Wales: ‘Ambulance response target may change after failures’. It reports: ‘Ambulance response targets in Wales may change in 2025, after four years of the service failing to meet its key measure.’
‘A total of 65% of the most life-threatening calls are expected to arrive to a patient within eight minutes, but this has been missed for the past 51 months. Health Secretary Jeremy Miles has asked experts to look at the “appropriateness” of the target.
‘The chief executive of Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust, Jason Killens, said “avoidable harm” was happening to Welsh patients, particularly in the second-most serious category.’
One reference to a specific performance metric – for the second most serious category – noted this: ‘Response times for amber calls have jumped from 11 minutes in 2015 to almost two hours. These make up 70% of responses.’
The article does include references to political opponents of the British Labour Party’s Welsh government. The latter of course has overall responsibility for health, including ambulance services.
BBC Wales reports: ‘Conservative health spokesman Sam Rowlands said they had all heard horror stories around long waits and he welcomed the announcement but hoped there would be “clear targets in place so there was proper accountability and transparency”. (my emphasis)
‘Plaid Cymru health spokesman Mabon ap Gwynfor said core problems in care services needed to be addressed that were not under the control of the ambulance service and a holistic approach was “desperately needed”.’
Mild-mannered stuff!
“Scandal”? “Shameful”? “Disgrace”? “Resign”? – any of the usual cries of outrage typical in BBC Scotland articles voiced by the Tory Gulhane, Labour’s Baillie and/or the Lib Dems’ Cole-Hamiton? None at all!
No sign of these or similar terms in the oppositions’ input to BBC Wales. Then again this is not Scotland: this is not opposition to an SNP government. It’s not hard to imagine a very different article from BBC Scotland if this news concerned ambulance services here!
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