England’s NHS underperformance day, bed-blocking and road deaths set BBC Scotland an impossible task to match the misery – second bed-blocking and community care

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, former Faculty Research Ethics Chair, UWS

BBC UK today is focusing on what they are calling ‘NHS Performance Day.’ Their tone suggests they already know the figures are going to be bad and they clearly intend to consider the effects of delayed discharges or ‘bed-blocking’ on that performance.

BBC Scotland’s team is no doubt already speaking to a single patient about their bad experience but they won’t be telling you the statistics. Here’s why:

Significant reduction in ‘bed-blocking’ due to Scottish Government’s care planning programme with waiting lists 40% longer in England and twice as long in Wales

From Public Health Scotland, only last week:

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).

https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/delayed-discharges-in-nhsscotland-monthly/delayed-discharges-in-nhsscotland-monthly-figures-for-december-2024#section-2

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.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthcaresystem/articles/nhsplannedcarewaitingtimesacrosstheuk/2024-06-18

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.

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_Brow

2 thoughts on “England’s NHS underperformance day, bed-blocking and road deaths set BBC Scotland an impossible task to match the misery – second bed-blocking and community care

  1. £22Billion more going into the NHS in April. The Tories cut the NHS funding for 14 years. Austerity made more people ill and dying. Life expectancy going down in the South. More people ill.

    Scottish Gov has to mitigate the cuts. Personal care. More people can stay in their own homes for longer. Child payment. Less poverty. Better lifelong health. MUP better health outcome. Prescriptions keeping people well. Kinship payments. Less people in care. Children can stay within their families. Less need for social care.

    Abused women need legal aid to keep people well. Less need for social care. Pay for itself.

    Like

Leave a reply to Anonymous Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.