Above, the plummeting ongoing waits after 52 weeks in NHS Scotland, for new outpatients and, on the right, for inpatients and day cases. These are dramatic, around 50%, and surely ‘newsworthy’, but:
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The BBC Scotland website above, at 7pm, nine hours after this important announcement by the Scottish Government ignores the above images:
Published on 24 February 2026 at 10:00am:
Health Secretary hails ‘undeniable progress’ in tacking long waits.
New figures show waiting lists in Scotland continue to fall with waits of over a year decreasing for 8 consecutive months.
Data from Public Health Scotland shows, at 31 January 2026, new outpatient waits of more than 52 weeks have more than halved since July 2025 – with the total waits decreasing by 52.6% in that period.
Long waits for inpatient and day case procedures have also fallen every month since July 2025, with 52 week waits decreasing by 29.8% in that 8 month period.
New quarterly diagnostics statistics also show that, at 31 December 2025, the number of waits for one of the eight key diagnostic tests had decreased by 15.1% when compared to 30 September 2025.
https://www.gov.scot/news/nhs-waiting-lists-continue-to-fall/
This morning, they continue to ignore the above.
This requires an agenda at editorial level given that all of BBC Scotland’s news reporters will receive, across social media platforms and in their own email inboxes, alerts to Scottish Government announcements such as the above.
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Talking-up Scotland 
Opposition Ambulance Chasers are quick to twist stats to suit their own malign purposes but the only real test of our NHS is personal experience .
My own experience in the last two weeks, when my sister was in need of the Ambulance Service and A&E , left me with no doubt as to the brilliant and priceless NHS which we are lucky enough to have here in Scotland .
No amount of political criticism can dent my belief in the Scottish NHS which is in safe hands with this Scottish Government . However , I shudder at the ( distant ) prospect of our NHS being at the mercy of Sarwar or Baillie or the Tory/Reform fascists .
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The latest information in the Scottish Government press release on NHS Scotland waits is ‘significant’ given the importance of the NHS to the voting public and given the unrelenting media and political attention afforded NHS Scotland’s and the Scottish Government’s record on health matters. So it should be newsworthy!
Recent BBC news reports elsewhere confirm that such information is indeed deemed newsworthy!
When reporting on NHS England’s performance data released on February 12, the BBC News website opted to report it under this headline: ‘NHS waiting list at lowest level in three years’.
Below the positively framed headline we’re told: ‘But while the waiting list did drop, performance against the 18-week target declined slightly.’ And also told: ‘.. a record number of 12-hour trolley waits’ and ‘More than 71,500 patients spent longer than 12 hours in January 2026 waiting for a bed …. – the highest figure since it started being tracked in 2010.’ So alternate, negatively framed headlines were available if BBC editors wished to use them! They opted for headlining a positive.
On February 19, the Wales section of the BBC News website had this headline: ‘Hospital waiting lists in Wales lowest in almost three years’.
The BBC also told us this later in the article: ‘However, the figures showed 19% of the overall list in Wales was waiting a year or more compared to England, where the figure is less than 2%, according to comparable NHS data.’ Again, content for a negatively framed headline was available if the BBC editors wished to use it.
A BBC pattern here: this kind of information IS NEWSWORTHY and OPT TO HEADLINE THE POSITIVES!
Meanwhile in Scotland, does the release of new performance data from NHS Scotland make coverage by BBC Scotland unlikely if the results are too positive? Bias by omission in plain site?
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