Lisa Summers asks ‘How does Starmer’s NHS plan compare to Scotland?’ before completely ignoring the facts

Professor John Robertson OBA

Summers does not, of course, answer her own question truthfully. She dare not. Here’s why:

Shocking FOUR times as many, per head, wait more than 12 hours in NHS England, than in NHS Scotland, Type 1 A&E departments
Deeply impressive – NHS Scotland fully ready to operate on more than 98% of more than 25 000 operations in May 2025 but you won’t hear that anywhere else
The morning after Fiona Bruce’s barefaced lie about NHS Scotland, BBC Health offer you the awful truth of how bad NHS England is on the key life-or-death 18 week wait
As NHS Scotland treats 91.6% of nearly 5 000 children and adolescents with mental health concerns, on time, BBC just ignore it and STV lets a campaign group headline the 4% waiting too long
Latest – Heart operation waiting list in NHS England 50% longer than in NHS Scotland
NHS England paying out nearly FIVE TIMES as much for medical negligence as NHS Scotland because of this
There is no postcode lottery in NHS Scotland’s hospital death rates in sharp contrast with NHS England where you might worry where you go
How NHS Scotland repeatedly has and can help NHS England patients
Never reported by ‘Scotland’s media’ – 97% of drug abusers referred to NHS Scotland begin treatment within three weeks and every part of Scotland hits or betters the 90% target
Cancer waiting times – NHS Scotland treats significantly more within target waiting times again
Patient satisfaction surveys rate NHS Scotland improving and far more highly than NHS England to cast doubt on 4th Health Secretary media witch-hunt
UK Government figures reveal that NHS Scotland performs significantly better than NHS England because it has 21% more staff after 17 years of SNP rule
NHS Scotland had 27% fewer delayed hospital discharges than NHS Wales after decades of Labour control there but Scottish Labour conveniently ignore that
They’re never going to tell you about this – 100% seen within the target for years, more than 80% waiting less than half the target time and numbers well above pre-pandemic levels – Scotland’s IVF programme creating and saving live

9 thoughts on “Lisa Summers asks ‘How does Starmer’s NHS plan compare to Scotland?’ before completely ignoring the facts”

  1. Yes , John …

    but apart from more nurses , more GPs , more midwives , more hospital beds , shorter waiting times for A&E , shorter waits for Cancer treatment , higher mental health treatment numbers , better drug treatment figures , more operations per head , higher patient satisfaction , fewer maternity deaths , no strikes by medical staff , ….

    How is the Scottish NHS better than England’s ?

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  2. Indeed, just looked it up https://archive.ph/pjjkn and it’s the usual BBC Scotland selective ‘spam’ menu from the kitchens of James Cook – The header picture is subtitled ” A doctors union has claimed that NHS Scotland is “dying before our eyes” ” to imply every member agrees with their posing chair’s hyperbolic nonsense, before Lisa begins churning out the spam…

    I did have some fun with the embedded links in the piece, the number of comments to the article would briefly show up in red before the ‘furrner’ version would appear with no comments visible – eg Lisa’s orphaned one-liner ” And cancer waiting times are the worst on record ” momentarily showed 374 before the sanitised version appeared, again featuring BBC Scotland’s favoured ‘dial-a-quote’ poser Kennedy…

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  3. The performance of NHS Scotland and now to be contrasted with the ‘shiny promise’ of the Labour Westminster government’s new 10 year plan for NHS England – omitting any mention of the performance of NHS Wales after 26 years under a Labour government in Cardiff, of course – is likely to be front and centre of the British Labour Party’s campaign for the 2026 Holyrood election. The NHS is a potent topic in elections!

    Such an emphasis will chime well with voters who have been relying on the news from BBC Scotland, the Daily Record, The Herald et al, i.e. those who may have succumbed to gaslighting. The ground for the campaign has been well prepared.

    And candidly, the SNP/Scottish Government has been able to achieve precious little media traction for anything good about NHS Scotland and for anything favourable about comparisons between NHS Scotland and the NHS elsewhere in the UK.

    The evidence available to support credibly the talking up of NHS Scotland has been highlighted over years here on TuS, albeit through inevitably often disaggregated information. The obvious and difficult challenge is how to further its penetration within the electorate. It seems that BBC Scotland and the usual mainstream media outlets that supposedly serve Scotland have little or no interest in assessing the performance of NHS Scotland objectively nor to research comparisons with its UK nations’ peers where these may prove favourable to NHS Scotland. Context, perspective, comparative analysis are concepts alien to much of the mainstream media here!

    I wish I had the public communications know-how to suggest ways to address the challenge of better informing those voters who rely for their information and insights on the media outlets referred to above. Anyone?

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    1. I don’t think there is any easy way to get a message across to those relying on the daily mail etc for info, even when you point things out politely they refuse to listen. But I have just spent 10 mins on Bluesky skimming through posts on UK politics and adding the link to this article in the replies. No guarantee anyone will read it but even if we can pick off a few one at a time it’s worth it.

      There’s a substack post called Dear Scotland, I’m wondering if a Dear England one would be worth doing. Pointing out what is going on in Scotland (all that free stuff!!) and inviting English voters to wonder why they neither hear about it or have parties offering similar policies – a stirring of a collective national conscience. I know these sites are only read by a relative few but ripples spread, it might be worth a try?

      And, at the risk of sounding like a crazed TuS stalker this site has more than done its bit, and that includes all who take the time to post replies. We often rely too heavily on established organisations and officials to do our arguing for us but how much more powerful would we be if the 50% supporting independence stood up and argued for it, joined conversations, added to research and spread the word?

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  4. One thing that should be added to the list of NHS Scotland’s achievements is the number of new hospitals that have been built the length and breadth of Scotland- community, general, specialist and mega. As well as the new build there has been repair/refurbishment/repurposing of the existing NHS facilities. While in NHS England you have hospital wards where the ceiling has to be held up with iron pillars and regular flooding of spaces in hospitals.

    All worth a mention.

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