Professor John Robertson OBA
In NHS England for the quarter ending December 2025, 91.3% were first treated within 31 days from decision to treat and 69.6% were treated after an urgent referral within 62 days. The NHS England targets for these two points are 96% and 85% with the latter recently reduced from 95% in an effort to make it more achievable.1
In NHS Scotland for the quarter ending December 2025, 94.7% were first treated within 31 days from decision to treat and 73.5% were treated after an urgent referral within 62 days. The NHS Scotland targets for these two points are both 95%.2
These single digit percentage differences can be taken by some, especially Scottish journalists, to imply only minor differences in performance but it is important to remember that they refer to around 7 000 cases in Scotland and 80 000 in England such that had NHS England’s performance applied in Scotland, several hundred patients would have waited longer than the target times in that one quarter and had Scotland’s better performance applied in England, several thousands would have been treated quicker than the target times in that one quarter.
Sources:
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
‘.. single digit percentage differences can be taken by some, especially Scottish journalists, to imply only minor differences in performance’.
Comparisons between the NHS in the four nations is surely a legitimate and useful exercise in the prevailing constitutional and political UK context. However, politicians from Unionist parties and their mainstream media allies will only engage in this when they perceive an advantage. They will ‘compare’ when they see an opportunity to gaslight the electorate in Scotland and to do the present Scottish Government reputational and therefore, electoral harm. In other circumstances, they can fall back on omission!
On reading the following from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM), you may well wonder HOW it is possible that A&E performance could get to be so poor in Wales! After all, the British Labour Party has been in power in Cardiff since Wales gained its own parliament in 1999.
You may wonder HOW performance could get to be so bad in Wales for another reason, viz. the professed acumen of British Labour Party politicians and advisors in Scotland. Politicians from this same British Labour Party profess on a regular basis to know the cause of long waits at A&E in Scotland – it’s simple, it’s down to ’SNPbad’! And in Wales?
And the same British Labour Party promotes itself with the aid of the Daily Record and other mainstream media outlets as having the ‘solution’ to the ills of NHS Scotland IF ONLY it is elected to government in Scotland in 2026.
How does this square with the reality of the NHS in Wales? What is Labour’s actual track record? The Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) on March 24 issued a press statement on the latest (February 2025) waiting times performance data for NHS Wales. This is what the RCEM reports.
In February 2025: ’57,970 people attended major Emergency Department in Wales – 6.2% lower than January 2025 (61,782);
Only ’56.1% of patients in major EDs were admitted, transferred, or discharged within four hours from arrival;
’23.8% of major ED attendances waited more than eight hours (13,775 patients)’;
15.4% of major ED attendances were delayed by 12 hours or more (8,942 patients);
‘When it comes to in-patients, there was a daily average of almost 1,500 people who experienced a delay of more than 48 hours from the point when they were deemed medically well enough to leave hospital.’
The above performance data are reported in an RCEM press release entitled ‘Corridor Care ‘endemic’ in Welsh A&Es as RCEM research reveals shocking reality’. The RCEM conducted a ‘snapshot’ survey on three different dates and times in January and February 2025 with all 12 Emergency Departments in Wales submitting results. The survey results revealed that:
12 out of 12 Welsh EDs had patients being treated in corridors;
Of the average total of 619 patients present in EDs at the time, 13.5% were being treated on trolleys in corridors and other inappropriate spaces. A further 10.7% of patients in waiting areas were deemed as needing a clinical space;
43.9% (272) of all patients were waiting for an inpatient bed;
Every ED’s cubicles were full, with the average cubicle occupancy being 176%. The highest being 278% in one department where there were 75 patients and just 27 cubicles.
See https://rcem.ac.uk/corridor-care-endemic-in-welsh-aes-as-rcem-research-reveals-shocking-reality/
I could (but won’t here) set out the equivalent NHS Scotland performance figures: I’m confident from prior research that NHS Scotland will be performing relative well by comparison. But yes, I’m also sure that NHS Scotland’s performance will be far below what it should be!
Candidly that’s not the point. THE POINT is that the British Labour Party is revealed by NHS Wales as having no track record of delivering a well performing NHS with limited devolved powers. The criticisms of the Scottish Government by the British Labour Party in Scotland, it’s simplistic (‘SNPbad’) analysis and claims of having the ‘solutions’ if only it could gain power in Holyrood are all fatuous – based on the reality of NHS Wales. Let’s not be deceived into thinking otherwise.
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