Professor John Robertson OBA

In the Guardian today, the above and:

Hospitals in England are being offered unlimited bonus payments to remove people they decide do not need treatment from their waiting lists amid warnings that thousands of patients most in need are still facing unacceptable delays.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/apr/10/hospitals-in-england-to-get-unlimited-incentive-payments-for-patients-taken-off-waiting-lists

This scheme triggered a memory which concerned me. The so-called ‘serious’ media said little in 2013, but the Mail and other tabloids had:

GPs have been paid bonuses to put elderly patients on controversial ‘death lists’ in an attempt to save the NHS money by cutting the number of people who die in hospital.

They have been given £50 a time to draw up ‘end-of-life advanced care plans’ for patients they predict will pass away within a year. Those behind the ‘yellow folder’ scheme – so named as that is where the care plan forms are kept – insist its main aim is to give patients a  better death.

But critics say it was designed to save money and could result in  people being denied treatment or help. According to documents seen by The Mail on Sunday, a ‘key objective’ of the project, trialled in eastern England, has been ‘to shift the place of death’ away from hospitals so ‘reducing .  .  . healthcare costs’.

Every death that takes place outside of hospital saves the NHS almost £1,000, official calculations show. Average hospital deaths in England costs the NHS £3,065 but those elsewhere cost only £2,107.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2468112/Revealed-How-GPs-paid-50-bonus-elderly-death-lists.html

Imagine the Scottish Government suggested any such thing?