Royal College of Emergency Medicine is much more negative and indeed, alarmist when reporting on Scotland

The RCEM patron
Support Talking-up Scotland's work to counter the lies and get you the facts, daily, at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/checkout/help-talking-up-scotland-tell-truth-about-scotland/payment/nBQxjVzq/details or, if you prefer, a bank transfer, at sort code 089300 account 1421 7339

By stewartb

There have now been two press statements issued during August by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) concerning A&E waits in Scotland. The headlines use extremely negative language, designed to alarm – ‘unacceptable and dangerous’, ‘ shocking and shameful’ and ‘dangerous’. These are in addition to a press statement in June – ‘deeply concerning and distressing’ in the headline, and one in July when new data on delayed discharge rather than the reported A&E waiting times in the statement was deemed presumably to provide a ‘better’ headline.

By contrast, I can find no RCEM press statement on NHS England’s A&E waits during June and July. When last commenting on A&E waits in NHS England – on its performance during May 2025 – the RCEM statement had this headline: ‘Slight improvements hard to celebrate when thousands of people are enduring extreme A&E waits’.

For perspective, on over 12 hour stays in A&E during July 2025:

NHS Scotland: 4.35% of attendances: NHS England: 8.9% of attendances.

The RCEM press statement on the above performance by NHS Scotland had this headline: ‘Number of people facing extreme waits in Scotland’s A&E ‘unacceptable and dangerous’ . The RCEM opted NOT to issue a press statement on these NHS England figures – even tho’ surely 8.9% is an awful lot worse than 4.35%!

Source: NHS England Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS) – Data June 2025 and July 2025 (Provisional) Statistical Commentary

When the RCEM last commented on waits in NHS England’s A&E departments, data for May 2025, NHS England reported that 9.4% of attendances spent over 12 hours in an A&E department. Using the NHS Scotland figures in May quoted in an RCEM press statement – 125,779 attendances and 4,863 spending 12 hours or more – this equates to 3.9%. The RCEM statement notes: ‘Which is a slight improvement on the previous month.’ Rather than refer to this in its headline and opening paragraphs, the RCEM opted to focus on delayed discharges.

Despite reporting regularly on the waiting times performance of A&E departments in England (albeit, oddly, not recently), NI, Scotland and Wales – reports which have long revealed the substantially better performance on NHS Scotland. – the RCEM NEVER explicitly acknowledges this fact as far as I can tell.

Moreover, based on the nature of its press statements, there is a case to be made that its ‘tone’ is much more negative and indeed, alarmist when reporting on Scotland. And it is no surprise that the BBC and mainstream media that supposedly serve Scotland laps this up, all the time shunning any comparative assessment that would show NHS Scotland in a good light!

13 thoughts on “Royal College of Emergency Medicine is much more negative and indeed, alarmist when reporting on Scotland”

  1. The Scottish & rUK education results follow the same pattern, more positive headlines and less political finger pointing in rUK, negatives accentuated and positives buried deep in reports. It’s very depressing and adds to the sense of despair and hopelessness parties like Reform thrive on. Add to that the constant sniping, in fighting and sometimes downright viciousness between indy supporting groups, the fostering of contempt for the only party in a position to change things if given support and you have to wonder – are we being played for fools? or are we just too thrawn to show we are able to manage our country?

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

  2. This takes me back to Boris Johnson days when he went into full SNHS bad in Westminster and issued the warning that our better run NHS would need to be taken into the care of NHS England under the wing of Westminster because it was failing patients so badly. Luckily he was ousted before he could do any lasting damage – if you discount his “getting brexit done” jobbie that is.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

    1. They do but the MSM does not publish/broadcast them. So it is up to us to give them the oxygen of publicity via our presence on social media platforms etc.

      Liked by 4 people

      Reply

  4. Not one mention in the Brit news of the eye-watering cost of building the English fresh water reservoirs. Instead of costing millions its looking more likely Billions. The Oxfordshire reservoir is 30 years late and now at a revised cost of £7.5 billion.

    Regards John Hay

    Sent from Outlook for Androidhttps://aka.ms/AAb9ysg

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    1. The south of england’s water supply is almost exhausted – They desperately need desalination plants and nuclear reactors to power them, so Oxford is but the tip of a very expensive iceberg…. At some point in the next 20 years, they may be able to start filling the reservoirs….

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  5. It’s a nice distraction for them from the catastrophe that is public healthcare in England.
    It’s wholly unprofessional for such an organisation to skew the facts if that’s what they are doing. Their integrity is in question if they are not reporting factually and honestly about Scotland’s public healthcare, or indeed England’s public healthcare.
    Who funds them? Where are they based, who is on their board? Who is their CEO? Hmm.

    Like

    Reply

  6. Off-topic but interesting observation about the BBC coverage of exam statistics in Scotland and England.

    The BBC Scotland article below was posted under ‘Scotland Politics’ and includes a graph showing the ‘Poverty-related attainment gap’ and the ‘Percentage of A to C grades by deprivation ranking’.

    They did not provide a graphic showing the ‘Regional gap in Scotland’

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crkzn77mz0xo

    On the other hand, today’s BBC article was found under ‘Family and Education’ and they provide a graphic under ‘2. Regional gap grows in England’

    Unlike BBC Scotland, they do not provide a graph which shows the ‘Poverty-related attainment gap’ for England.

    Maybe you have to work it out for yourself from the information provided? 🤔

    (I will post a link to the other BBC article in the comment below)

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Leave a reply to Anonymous Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.