The Talking-up Scotland fund raiser primarily to enable the recruitment of some research assistance, in order to take pressure off me [74 in June and tiring] and hopefully to further improve the blog, has made a good start. To contribute, only if you can (!) go to: Talking-up Scotland - a Politics crowdfunding project in Ayr by Professor John Robertson

By Professor John Robertson OBA

Today, in the Guardian:

More than half a million people in England have had to wait longer than two months for essential cancer treatment, analysis of latest NHS figures has shown. It has led experts to suggest thousands more patients will die unnecessarily unless the NHS gets to grips quickly with the delays.

Analysis of new NHS figures by Radiotherapy UK shows that in the decade to November 2024, 506,335 cancer patients in England waited more than 62 days for treatment. International research shows that every four weeks of delay in cancer treatment increases the risk of death by up to 10%. But the NHS has not met its target for 85% of cancer patients to start treatment within 62 days since December 2015 – currently, only 69% begin treatment within the two-month target.¹

The implication of the above is that around 50 000 died due to waiting time delays.

Based on that, we might, BBC Scotland would, estimate around 5 000 died because they waited too long in Scotland.

The latest 62 day waiting times figure for Scotland, September 2024, was 72.1%.²

The equivalent figure for NHS England, was 65%.³

NHS Scotland, after 17 years of SNP rule, is thus performing around 11% better (10.9) and, so, crudely based on the Guardian claims above, has saved 500 lives while NHS England has lost 5 000 lives due to the consequences of Conservative Party underfunding and varied other forms of mismanagement.

Sources:

1. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/feb/03/england-essential-cancer-treatment-wait-nhs
2. https://www.gov.scot/publications/nhsscotland-performance-against-ldp-standards/pages/cancer-waiting-times/
3. https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/cancer-waiting-times/cancer-waiting-times-1-july-to-30-september-2024/