By Professor John Robertson OBA:
The 3 minute Reporting Scotland inserts, on BBC Breakfast this morning, but as often before not covered on the BBC Scotland website, exploits the news that the First Minister is speaking today on increasing access to healthcare, to platform the opposition claims, unchecked:
This is a longstanding practice on BBC Scotland to platform opposition tirades with unreliable evidence uncontested. BBC England, Wales and Northern Ireland almost never do this. The NHS performance of their parties in England & Wales is never mentioned. Their own editorial guidelines are, in this way, broken every day. It’s not news, it’s a campaign, it’s propaganda.
For those getting their news exclusively from BBC Scotland, the damage is done but here are the facts once again. Perhaps you’ll get a chance to share them with members of this group.
NHS waiting times – all factually better in Scotland on 4 key measures of A&E, cancer, 18 weeks and overall waiting list
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.
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?
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' 
” It’s not news, it’s a campaign, it’s propaganda ” – Precisely.
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The Tories under funded the NHS for 14 years. Westminster spent £270Billion funding Covid, wasting £Bilions on non scrutinised contracts and loans. Mone.
Westminster wasting £Billions on HS2 and Hickley Point. Instead of improving railway in the North and Scotland to cut journey times. Journeys take twice as long as in the South. Now they plan to spend £Billions on a third runway. A total waste of money.
£Billions being wasted on Trident, redundant weaponry and war. Putting Scotland in danger. Scotland in surplus in fuel and energy pays more. Brexit losing £Billions. Scotland did not vote for it.
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Haud it and dod it: Scotland’s answer to nothing.
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Yes Yes but will Swinney stand up given the opportunity at QT to tell the truth…. answer…. very unlikely leaving millions of Scots feeling the Scot Government and our NHS is the worst performing in the UK. Sorry I hate to say this but unless he ups his game quickly he has got to hand over the reigns to someone in the SNP (preferably Stephen Flynn ) with the capacity to get these messages across otherwise the Unionist propaganda machine and their fake news will prevail.
Robbo
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To be fair, each and every time this bullshit has come up at QT and the rest, it is repeatedly refuted by every SNP MP and MSP.
– John’s headline says it best, but I’ll bolden the crucial point ” The shortest waiting lists in the UK but BBC Scotland quote Sandesh Gulhane and Jackie Baillie in a 2 minute report to lie about NHS Scotland – factually better on the 4 key measures of A&E, cancer, 18 weeks and overall waiting list” – Even were Stephen Flynn roaring his head off about it, who the hell is going to hear it ?
Remember Alex Salmond and the Nick Robinson report “And he said nothing..” or similar ? – Now Alex was no shrinking violet for putting his point across, but he was effectively silenced by the BBC – Unfortunately, for the BBC even watchers in England spotted it – Do you remember James Cook changing the story-line over how unwelcome the Tory leadership contest was in Perth by turning the news to him, the poor wee journalist only trying to do his job, as selectively edited from a video by a plant in the target group ? – Do you remember Fiona Bruce showing her true colours on QT by asking the same contrived and very specific question of John Swinney and Kate Forbes a week apart knowing full well it was a trick question ? – Now do you spot a pattern ?
I heartily agree that there should be a way to get the truth out there, but when you identify the how, please do let all of us know….
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Do you mean FMQ’s? hardly anybody watches, the BritNats do watch I’m sure, to see what they can pick at to plonk on the front pages of the BritEngNat rags…
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The reference was QT, but your point holds equally true, it’s what the propagandists prey on, the disconnect to reality.
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What ? The BBC has ”editorial guidelines ” ? Wow ! Who knew !
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Two versions, the partial and the impartial…..
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