By Professor John Robertson OBA
On STV News at 6pm tonight, Conservative Shadowy Health Secretary, Sandesh Gulhane was allowed, unchecked and uncontested, to claim that less (sic) people are coming into ‘our’ health service and that delayed discharges need to come down.
First, NHS Scotland staffing – 160 840 FTE, up 1.6% on last year and 17.7% up on ten years ago.1 So, more not fewer (Sandy!) people are coming into my NHS.
Sandy’s from south of the border. How is staffing there? 1.3 million FTE.2 Now, with one tenth of the population, Scotland must only need around 130 000 yet it has 30 000, 23%, more.
Delayed discharges do need to come down but do you think STV and Gulhane might have mentioned that the yare currently doing so?
Sources:
- https://turasdata.nes.nhs.scot/data-and-reports/official-workforce-statistics/all-official-statistics-publications/03-december-2024-workforce/?pageid=13014
- https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/insight-and-analysis/data-and-charts/nhs-workforce-nutshell
From Public Health Scotland, three days ago:
At the December 2024 census, there were 1,890 people delayed. Compared to the previous three census points, this is lower than November 2024 (2,020), October 2024 (2,030) and September 2024 (1,951).
This improving picture, 7% down, in January, a month normally associated with increases in ‘bed-blocking’ will derive from Scotland’s far more successful programme to reduce waiting times for planned care in the community. See:
From NHS planned care waiting times across the UK, as of March 2024, 8.9 patients per 100 were waiting under 52 weeks and 0.9 were waiting over 52 weeks in Scotland.
In England, the figures were 12.4 and 0.5 and in Wales, shockingly, 17.1 and 4.5.
The ONS reminds us:
Each UK country has different healthcare policies, commissioning processes and patient data systems for planned care because of the devolved healthcare system; these affect the data coverage available on referral to treatment (RTT) or stage of treatment waiting lists, and the extent to which data can be compared across the four countries.
but you can be sure that were the Scottish figures so much worse than the Welsh or English, it’d be frontpage news. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthcaresystem/articles/nhsplannedcarewaitingtimesacrosstheuk/2024-06-18
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Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
Each evening this week ( and most other weeks too ) STV has had an ”exclusive” interview with someone recounting their horrendous experience of the Scottish NHS . Then follows a familiar litany of problems which , uniquely in the UK/Europe/World/Universe , are affecting our hospitals . This is ALWAYS followed by an interview with a Scottish Government minister answering aggressive , loaded questions by a equally aggressive reporter , giving the audience the impression that all the problems of the NHS since the beginning of time are the fault of the SNP Government . For those who have not got the message yet , Damn Jaikie Baillie or Sandy Gulhane ( NHS lanyard prominently displayed ) is wheeled out to hammer home the unionist mantra – SNP Baaad !
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How do they find these aggrieved patients ? Have they an anonymous tip line for anyone wishing to undermine our NHS ?
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‘Horrendous experience of the SCOTTISH NHS’, let’s not do the BritNat states job for them, even if said in jest. (?).
The Brit state are experts at dirty tricks to take down governments in countries they colonise(d), and that’s what they are doing in Scotland. The lies and BRIT/ENG state PROPAGANDA is designed to brainwash people, and the jobworths mentioned in your comment, (which we already know the names of) are doing the dirty on Scotland for selfish reasons. I’m sure they have been promised seats on which to plonk their lying ar*es on at the Eng non elected House of Lards, paid £300++ a day for life while starving little children. I hope there is a hell.
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I don’t doubt Gulhane’s interview was initiated by his propaganda team, and it is highly likely the “…allowed, unchecked and uncontested..” condition was set before anything was done.
I suspect most of us have been aware of the PR manager hovering to the side or behind the camera, the ‘performer’ ever watchful for signals unseen by the viewer – We’ve also witnessed the occasional interview being ended by such individuals when they lose control of the narrative – It is all “stage managed”, right down to the scrubs and NHS lanyard in this particular instance, it’s his schtick….
There has been considerable effort put into reducing ‘bed-blocking’ in the NHS north and south of the border, only in Scotland has it been turned into yet another political football….
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I have read this a couple of times must be missing something if “8.9 patients per 100 were waiting under 52 weeks and 0.9 were waiting over 52 weeks” what happened to the remaining 90.2 per 100?
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The Tories underfunded the NHS for 14 years. Austerity made more people sick. The one-day Dr milking the system for undeserved benefits. The Tories are the biggest liars on the planet like all unionist politicians in the UK. Promoted above their own capabilities for personal gain. Spare the misery.
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I have to say Mr Gulhane is an uter discrace, to put it mildly.
Over Christmas my elderly father had a stroke. It happened early in the morning. His face was paralysed on one side and he couldn’t speak properly.
However, he decided NOT to call an ambulance. Instead, he chose to wait and see if the symptoms went away.
He’d seen Mr Gulhane on the BBC, apparently acting as a spokesman for the NHS, explaining that over “2000 people had died” due to waits in Scotland’s A&E of “up to 24 or even 48 hours”. So my father was deeply concerned that by calling an ambulance he might be making the “crisis” worse and possibly denying someone else live-saving treatment. With that in his mind, he felt it was better to wait and see if his symptoms went away before going to A&E.
Fortunately, his symptoms did go away and he regained his speech. It was a TIA stroke. If it had been a regular stroke he would probably have died.
I was furious when he told me what had happened later that evening. I told him to phone NHS 24 right away to ask for advice, which he did, and they told him to get to A&E immediately. (This was now 12 hours after his stroke.) He was there for 4 hours. He’s now on medication.
Mr Gulhane appears to have lied about 48 hour A&E waits. And there is no actual evidence of “more than 2000” people dying in Scotland’s A&E. But by using lies and exaggerations about the NHS for his own political gain he is putting patients’ lives at risk. It has real-world consequences. It’s dangerous. It’s unforgivable for a doctor to do this. The media is also culpable.
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“Primum non nocere”, effectively “do no harm” since Greek times has been serially abused by BBC Scotland, Labour, Liberal, Tory etc politicians for over a decade now, and not one of them has ever served on the front line of ‘our’ NHS, including the prick with the NHS lanyard and hair-gel.
As commented above, there is life beyond politics, yet some die on the altar of politicisation because of it – Whether the bullshit comes from ‘Disaster’ Gulhane or ‘Tsunami’ Baillie, ACH-him or BBC Scotland’s ‘Lazy winters”, bullshit costs lives, it really cannot be any simpler than that, despite Gulhane’s hypocritical oaths…
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