In Scotland’s health service every day on average. That’s according to figures obtained by the BBC. Data released under a Freedom of Information requests show the number of significant adverse events, including avoidable deaths jumped by 41% in the last four years.
Professor John Robertson OBA
This wee story today seems to be another one of those carried out by the Pacific Quay team, at public expense, in the hope of undermining the Scottish Government via the NHS. Details are not available at the BBC Scotland website, as yet but I’m looking forward to seeing how the wee souls came up with the 41% increase in four years. How much do you bet there’s a falling trend?
UPDATE – from their website in the last few minutes:
Figures released under freedom of information laws to BBC Scotland show that in 2020/21, a total of 567 SAERs for the most serious of incidents – events which may have contributed to or resulted in permanent harm – were carried out by Scotland’s health boards. By 2022/23 this had risen to 772 and last year the total was 803. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8x45v8npeqo
What happened to the figures for 2021/22? Higher than in the last two years so suggesting a falling trend?
What prompted BBC Scotland to investigate patient safety in Scotland anyway? Had this annoyed them?
Leading European expert says Scotland is ‘at the very top pillar with regards to patient safety’ since 2007, but on Boxing Day, BBC Scotland tries to compare us unfavourably with England
From BBC Scotland, December 26th 2024, after their ignorant and tasteless Christmas Eve attack, with the Scottish Cons and Labour’s Jackie Baillie, on the reputation of the staff at the Golden Jubilee Hospital in Clydebank, they’re back at it again today with more inaccurate reporting, this time on patient safety, with:
A recruitment drive for Scotland’s first ever Patient Safety Commissioner has failed for a second time. MSPs passed a law creating the new independent public advocate for NHS patients in September last year.
The first round of interviews for the £89,685-a-year role in April failed to produce a suitable candidate and then last month a second round of interviews saw the preferred person then turn the job down. Campaigners have described the latest delay as “incredibly frustrating”.
Dr Henrietta Hughes was appointed as England’s patient safety commissioner in 2022, external.
Looks bad doesn’t it? How long before an opposition MSP tweets to blame the SNP for this?
Far less time than it will take any of them to tell you this, about patient safety in NHS Scotland:
From the Westminster (UK Parliament) Health Committee, in January 2022:
The Scottish Patient Safety Programme (SPSP), introduced by the SNP Scottish Government in 2007, has been praised by a leading European expert on patient safety.
In Westminster’s Health Committee, Dr Pelle Gustafson, CMO at Swedish Patient Insurer, responded with “Scotland”, when he was asked which country he would hold at the very top pillar with regards to patient safety.Dr Gustfason said: “If you take all preventative work in regard to patient safety, I would say Scotland, I am personally very impressed with Scotland. I think in Scotland you have a long tradition of working, you have a development in the right direction and you also have a system which is fairly equal all over the place. You have improvement activities going on. So I am very impressed by Scotland”. https://mobile.twitter.com/DrGregorSmith/status/1481211002301685760
How long has England not had a ‘top tier’ patient safety programme?
The 30 year-long neglect of patient safety in NHS England exposed as SNP Government records 17 years of its ‘at the very top pillar’ safety programme first launched by Nicola Sturgeon
In May 2024, the Health Editor at the Sunday Times reported:
Why don’t things get better on #patientsafety? One reason is that the NHS & government do sweet FA to act on inquiry recommendations. The @Thirlwall_Inq [led by a senior judge] has published a comprehensive assessment of the last 30 years of inquiries. It is not a good read: https://t.co/OWSCa7AXEn
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
Actually talking of the BBC they have an article on their website which is the top story on their Scottish Politics page and top story on the Tayside & Central page too and also it’s the sixth story on the main Scotland page with a headline that states:
“Falkirk sets largest council tax increase of 15.6%”
The text of the article explains that “The budget of the council’s SNP administration was defeated. Instead the motion of Independent councillor Laura Murtagh was backed by the Labour group and other Independents”.
“Council leader and SNP councillor Cecil Meiklejohn said her administration’s proposed 13.7% would have brought Falkirk’s council tax closer to the Scottish average”
(BTW one of the other ‘Independents’ in Falkirk Council, who was formerly elected as a Conservative councillor, has now defected to the Reform UK party. So is that how Reform UK will make supposed ‘gains’ in Scotland, as in them coming in ‘through the back door’, seems so, as how many is that now who were formerly Tories but who have now defected to the Reform UK party, strangely this story, of her defection in Falkirk council, is currently not on any Scotland page on the BBC website yet it broke, as a revelation, only two days ago????).
Also MSM Monitor tweeted this today:
“The deputy political editor at The Daily Record posted this tweet yesterday. He turned off replies after angry responses pointed out that the SNP administration wanted a lower rise but Labour joined up with opposition councillors to force the higher rise through”
The tweet from the DR Deputy political Editor ,Chris McCall, was this:
“SNP-run Falkirk signs off 15.6 per cent council tax rise. Largest increase in the Scotland. Sheesh”.
McCall’s tweet has not been deleted , but at least he now knows that he has been caught out , in him trying to promote something that was (strongly) indicating that the blame was only with the SNP, and not with the DR’s beloved Labour party, for whom the DR constantly promotes political propaganda on their, Labour’s, behalf.
Sheesh, Labour and The Daily Record both always ‘playing politics’, they both just never stop doing that do they, in the so called ‘News where we are’ that is heavily tainted by an overwhelming media bias against the SNP.
Liz S
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Yep the BritNats play dirty, they know which tactics to use to CON the people.
I really think that politicians should never be allowed to change/defect to another political party without an election taking place so voters can decide if they still want to vote for them. It’s corrupt really, because anyone could stand partisan to a particular party, then defect having never had the intention of representing the party they and voters they were elected on. It’s so dodgy, it just should not be allowed, it’s deceiving the voters.
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That sort of makes sense lol.
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Totally agree ArtyHetty
If you defect to another political party then why should the voters have to then wait until the next elections come around to vote you out , I mean if you are so confident in your new preferred party, you should then put to the test, via a By-election.
With polls allegedly showing Reform UK having a better poll percentage than the Tory party in Scotland then I smell the stink of self survival from these ex Tory Councillors who jumped ship from the Tory party to the Reform UK party.
However if the Reform UK party do end up failing miserably in Scotland in subsequent elections, will these same ex Tory Councillors then decide to leave their new party (Reform UK) , only to then re-join their old party( the Tory party).
Defecting to another party is not democracy, in fact it makes a mockery of democracy.
That Falkirk Councillor who defected to the Reform UK party was originally elected as a Tory Councillor, then she was an independent and now, with her defection, she is an unelected Reform UK party councillor.
I hope she loses her council seat in the next Council elections in Falkirk, as she seems largely driven only by her own self interest and self survival (which means she fits in perfectly with the new party that she has defected to).
Liz S
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Seems there’s t’trouble at mill at Reform UK HQ….
Just this week Rupert Lowe warned Nigel Farage that his “Messiah act” risked “failing voters”.
Surely there is far far more potential “failures” from Farage than just a “failing voters” risk , and not just Farage but Rupert Lowe will also likely “fail” them as well, as both of them are Reform UK pseudo politicians !
Lowe said to the Daily Mail that “”We have to change from being a protest party led by the Messiah into being a properly structured party with a frontbench, which we don’t have. We have to start behaving as if we are leading and not merely protesting.”
Mind you Lowe does a pretty good job himself of someone who “protests” ..too much.
Then in the space of , checks notes, the same week…..
Rupert Lowe is himself in the headlines as one accused, and so now he could be the one who could be seen to be “failing” (existing Reform UK voters) as he has been accused of bullying in his parliamentary and constituency offices and he is also alleged to have , on two occasions , made threats of physical violence against the party chairman.
So a party scandal then.
Now a complaint has been passed to the Police on the alleged threats of physical violence, the party has also appointed a lawyer to conduct an investigation and now Lowe has had the party whip removed .
The clash of the egos, Rupert never looked like someone who would take orders from others and so just being an MP was not really enough for him IMO.
Plus Elon Musk had indicated earlier this year, in January, that Lowe would be a better leader of Reform UK than Farage (hence, I am sure, Lowe’s tactical “Messiah” swipe at Farage this week).
Seems also to be a case of………
“Now may not be the best time to defect , as a Councillor, to the Reform UK party”, which is not just happening as a situation in Scotland but it is also happening elsewhere in the UK too, as in Wales & England. (the Tories being the ones mainly losing their Councillors to Reform UK, as in ‘two Peas in a Pod’)
Honestly how long is it now that Rupert Lowe has been a Reform UK MP ?
That would be nearly 9 months up to now.
Also let’s be honest here, if there was a standard of behaviour expected from Reform UK candidates and also from their elected politicians (as Reform UK are now saying)……..
…………..then how come another one of their MP’s, James McMurdock, who was convicted in 2006 of assaulting his girlfriend by repeatedly kicking her when he was drunk, has not been subjected to any party investigation or suspension for doing that ?
Something BTW that was not made public when he, McMurdock, was both selected as a candidate for Reform UK and then elected as an MP.
When it was exposed after the GE he, McMurdock, tried to downplay the incident and said it was nothing more than a “teenage indiscretion” and guess what ?
Reform UK party did nothing !
I guess McMurdock had not made any challenge to Farage’s leadership so he was safe from there being a big party investigation, and also from a suspension , as in him losing the party whip .
Honestly , what a joke they are.
Vote SNP to still be the Scottish government in 2026 and do not vote for Reform UK .
Reform UK are being touted as “offering something different to the voters” but two problems being “what they really are offering the voters is not what the voters will get or want” and also big distinction between offering something and then actually delivering it.
As an example of this I refer you to the 2014 Scottish independence referendum where Scotland was offered a Hell of a lot but what was delivered to us was the equivalent of diddly squat compared to being independent.
Liz S
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Hi John,
re
“Two patients are seriously harmed, or suffer a near-miss incident, in Scotland’s health service every day on average. That’s according to figures obtained by the BBC”
Is this the same thing? 👇
https://www.england.nhs.uk/patient-safety/patient-safety-insight/patient-safety-alerts
“Collecting information on patient safety events
Our national systems for collecting records of patient safety events recorded by staff and patients are:
the new Learn from Patient Safety Events service (LFPSE), which is being introduced as a successor to the NRLS and StEIS.
the National Reporting and Learning System (NRLS)
the Strategic Executive Information System (StEIS)
Through these systems we have access to information on over 23 million patient safety events recorded since the NRLS was launched in 2003. Over 2 million patient safety events are now recorded annually.
We also consider other sources of intelligence, including information from direct correspondence, coroners, and other partner organisations, including the MHRA and UK Health Security Agency (formally Public Health England).”
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Many thanks for this.
Are you able/have time to make something of it for TuS?
John
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Hi John,
The NHS England article covered every safety aspect whereas the BBC Scotland article is concerned with Category 1 cases.
I will see if NHS England records statistics for Category 1 cases.
Re the figures for 2021/22
The BBC Scotland article in your link says –
“More than 800 safety incidents were reported in the NHS last year – a 41% increase from 2020 – and health watchdogs are now revamping the reporting system to improve scrutiny.”
There is a very similar article from the Scotland Health and Care News Channel.
It is dated 2 July 2021.
https://www.healthandcare.scot/default.asp?page=story&story=2693
“Boards have commissioned reviews into nearly 800 of the most serious failings since January 2020, data released under freedom of information legislation reveals”
The article mentions the reviews by the Health Boards covered the period from January 2020 to May 2021.
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Hi John,
That was lucky!
My first search and I found this.
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/Stories/National-State-Patient-Safety-2024/
This report presents the national state of patient safety in England in 2024.
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