Month-after-month, year-after-year, Scotland’s hospitals are ready to operate on more than 98%, or quarter of a million patients, on time, but get no media recognition, only the parroting of opposition party lies

Professor John Robertson OBA

From Public Health Scotland today, the above graph and:

Of all planned operations during April 2025 in NHSScotland, 733 (3.1%) were cancelled by the hospital for clinical reasons, 638 (2.7%) were cancelled by the patient, 415 (1.8%) were cancelled by the hospital due to capacity or non-clinical reasons, and 85 (0.4%) were cancelled for other reasons.

Source: https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/cancelled-planned-operations/cancelled-planned-operations-month-ending-30-april-2025/

Only that 1.8% figure can be meaningfully used to assess the performance of Scotland’s hospitals. Decisions to cancel by patient or doctor are to be expected in some cases as opinion and emotions shift.

NHS Scotland was ready to do 98.2% on time and only a tiny number of incidents of staff sickness or unpredictable surges in demand from say a serious road or industrial accident will have prevented it being 100%.

This is a remarkable achievement, month-after-month, year-after-year and it gets no media recognition. Hospital staff tell me they just don’t watch the news, sickened by its agenda and this kind of thing, below:

The only waiting list not shorter in Scotland.

The other and more important ones:

The deep irony of BBC Scotland talking about ‘hidden’ waiting lists when they routinely hide target-beating and lists much shorter than elsewhere in the UK

5 thoughts on “Month-after-month, year-after-year, Scotland’s hospitals are ready to operate on more than 98%, or quarter of a million patients, on time, but get no media recognition, only the parroting of opposition party lies”

  1. So sorry huge apologies, hugely O/T

    OMG

    God forgive me , but I have just watched what must be the most excruciatingly embarrassing interview that I have ever watched ( and I have watched a fair few horrendous ones in my time).

    Bella Caledonia has a video they have linked onto a Tweet where the Labour candidate , Davy Russell, is being interviewed by Colin Mackay of STV.

    Now recently I read online that people were saying that he , Russell, could not string a sentence together, that Labour were hiding him from media scrutiny and that they would not agree to him being a part of a TV candidate’s election debate programme, aka by-election special, hence he was named the “invisible man” , but after watching that interview tonight I realise that all of the above is 100% correct.

    I could also call him something else other than the “Invisible man” like say the “Inarticulate man” (I am being very very kind here).

    Who picked him ?

    Why was he picked for this particular by-election ?

    Who was he supposed to appeal to , as voters, within this constituency ?

    (Some of these may be rhetorical Q’s as I suspect I know the answers already, unlike Davy , who obviously had no answers in his interview with Colin from STV).

    Q’s and then even more Q’s, which BTW, he as a Labour candidate obviously is unable to answer any question (via his own thoughts) , as his responses are more like a dysfunctional robot built by a Scotsman, hence the accent who has more than a few (essential) microchips missing , like the one that supplies intelligence and an ability to form and then articulate a sentence. (as thought by himself)

    Honestly he , Russell, must have friends in high places or Labour were totally unable to get anyone else to stand in this by-election.

    If he was my MSP I would move. He is that bad.

    This is the supposed best candidate that a UK Labour party could select to stand for them as a UK party at Holyrood. Things must be bad for Labour.

    Of course an an MSP for a pro UK party at Holyrood you really are under no real pressure , as all of the big decisions and the political direction of the party(especially any “New Direction) are things that HQ decides , you just have to sit there and be able to say, on a loop, ‘SNPBAD’ , even (or rather especially) when they, the SNP as the Scottish government , do something that is clearly very very good and not in the least bit bad at all.

    I do hope everyone manages to watch this wee clip on Bella C’s Twitter ‘X’ account (or perhaps it is on the STV’s website online) it only lasts about 1 minute 41 seconds but upon listening to it , it actually feels , painfully, far far far longer.

    I even wonder if this is a fake and so it is being dubbed by some Scottish comedy sketch show as it is equal , as in as funny , yet also it makes you squirm too.

    Vote SNP , as if you vote Labour , especially in this by-election, then please accept my sympathy, you really really will need it if you are in his constituency.

    Liz S

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        1. Oops, I see you meant Bella Caledonia’s website not what I thought, which was that you had mistakenly written BBC as ” BC’s website” Ha Ha

          Sorry ArtyHetty

          Liz S

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  2. So to continue the NHS theme from yesterday….

    BBC has this story on their website in relation to the NHS in England….It is on the main UK page , when you click on the story it then takes you onto the Health page, it is not on the UK Politics page:

    “Police investigate heart deaths at NHS hospital”

    “Police have launched an investigation into the deaths of patients following heart operations at an NHS hospital, the BBC has learned”.

    “Documents seen by us (BBC) suggest patients suffered avoidable harm – and that in some cases their death certificates failed to disclose that the procedure contributed to their deaths”.

    “One woman’s operation at Castle Hill Hospital near Hull – that should have taken no more than two hours – has been described as a “disaster” by one medic. She spent six hours in surgery and lost five litres of blood – all while under local anesthetic”.

    “But none of this was mentioned on her death certificate, which recorded her as dying from pneumonia. Her family were also not told what had happened”.

    “The NHS body that runs Castle Hill, the Humber Health Care Partnership, told the BBC it had delivered improvements suggested by the Royal College of Physicians (RCP). In a statement, it said it was happy to directly answer any questions from the patients’ families”.

    “Humberside Police said an investigation was “in the very early stages” and no arrests had been made”.

    “The department’s TAVI mortality rate at the time was three times higher than the UK average, something patients and families were also unaware of”.

    “Staff concerns within the hospital led managers to commission several reviews – but none was made public“.

    “In 2021, seven cardiac consultants wrote they were “very concerned about the safety and transparency of the TAVI service” in a letter to the hospital’s chief executive. It followed the deaths, in less than six months, of four of the 11 patients”.

    “The Humber Health Care Partnership – which runs Castle Hill through Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (HUTH) – said in a statement: “We understand families may have questions and we are happy to answer those directly.”

    (There was a Review in 2024 , this article by the BBC lists some of that Review’s findings, check it out on the BBC website as it is quite damning in relation to this hospital’s behaviour in this matter).

    So just imagine for one moment if this were in a Scottish hospital.

    Would the fact that the Police were investigating “heart deaths” at a Scottish Hospital not then become a political matter. Where Anas Sarwar and other ‘leaders’ of parties at Holyrood would be highlighting this at FMQ’s as a political matter.

    Where we would then see the BBC include these attacks by other ‘leaders’ at Holyrood upon the FM and also upon the Scottish Health Secretary in all of their BBC Scotland news reports that day.

    This article in the BBC website is in relation to an English hospital as part of the English NHS , but it is not political , it is as an article, one that is confined to noting only the facts of the story , the name of the Hospital and also who runs it, where also it notes the relatives of patients and tells their stories on this, as the relatives of those who had died via this tragic situation that now has prompted a Police investigation.

    This article was only added to the BBC website today but it is now currently the fifth story on the main UK page, we all know had it been a Scottish hospital then it would have been the top story on both the main Scottish page and also very much the top story on the Scottish Politics page of the BBC website. (also how long would it, as a story, have remained on the BBC website on their Scottish pages).

    That’s another reason I vote SNP (one of many) as I know that Scotland and the SNP are not treated in the same way as some other nations and political parties are within the UK, like say the nation (England) that the UK government ( previously under the Tories and now Labour) are in charge of , but who, as a UK government, are often allowed to be seen to escape responsibility and accountability for failures and scandals within some English public services, while our Scottish government is blamed for everything (more so many of those things that are outwith their control as a government).

    If things like this happened within a specific hospital why then, in Scotland, does it always become political and so then seen to be the fault of our Scottish government yet in England that is not the case. Both cannot be right.

    Vote SNP via a majority or keep listening to Jackie Baillie pretending that it is the Scottish NHS that has (supposed huge) problems , while we are supposed to then assume all other NHS services within other nations in the UK are problem free. Reality and facts prove otherwise (However Baillie does not do facts and neither does her pretend boss at Holyrood, who takes his instructions from the real boss of his party at Labour HQ).

    Liz S

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