across the UK, but recovery after Covid is perhaps one area where Scotland has performed a little bit worse than England England in terms of the waiting times for non-urgent operations that people are facing right now.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002szh1/reporting-scotland-lunchtime-news-19032026

BBC Reporting Scotland today, ignoring all the evidence that does not fit their agenda and trying to tell you that the SNP Government did no better and even, in recovery, even worse.

First excess deaths

First, Excess Deaths –

From the Covid Inquiry documents, Table 13, during the pandemic period from March 2020 to February 2022, in England, excess deaths were 6.5% and Scotland only 3.9%. In Scotland 1 871 excess deaths which pro rata should have been 18 710 but were 20 009, 6.6% higher.

https://covid19.public-inquiry.uk/documents/module-2-closing-statement-on-behalf-of-the-scottish-ministers/

Second, Standardised Mortality Rates –

Sir Iain Diamond UK National Statistician – England had the highest Age-standardised Mortality Rates for deaths involving COVID-19 of the four nations, 145.0 per 100,000 people followed by Wales (144.6), Northern Ireland (130.7) and Scotland (124.9), between March 2020 and February 2022.4

Professor Hale, Oxford University – these outcomes occurred in spite of the relatively high levels of poverty-related ill health in Scotland, which might have been expected, everything else being equal, to result in a higher, rather than lower, Age-standardised Mortality https://covid19.public-inquiry.uk/documents/module-2-closing-statement-on-behalf-of-the-scottish-ministers/

20 per 100 000 fewer deaths during the pandemic is more than 1 000 lives saved by Nicola Sturgeon and her team.

Third, operations and other procedures –

The only thing they have is the longer waits for non-urgent operations. It’s true, Boris Johnson spent millions clearing these up by paying the private sector to do them more quickly. There are more Scots, per head of population waiting for these ‘non-urgent’ ops such as hip and knew replacement but what about the ‘urgent’ ones, like heart failure, stroke and cancers, which have to be treated within 18 weeks for good and obvious reasons?

In the 2024, the most recent annual figures, NHS Scotland did 70% of nearly 300 000 cases within the target time:

https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/nhs-waiting-times-18-weeks-referral-to-treatment/nhs-waiting-times-18-weeks-referral-to-treatment-quarter-ending-31-december-2024/

In the same period, NHS England did only 58.9% of around 3 million cases. https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/rtt-waiting-times/

So that difference of 11.1% between Scotland and England means that around 30 000 of these urgent cases in Scotland were treated on time but would not have in England and around 300 000 of these urgent cases in England might have been done had NHS England been more like NHS Scotland.

Even on the longer waiting lists for non-urgent cases, these have been cut by more than 50% in the last 8 months: https://www.gov.scot/news/nhs-waiting-lists-continue-to-fall/

In A&E, twice as many per head, wait more than 12 hours in NHS England:

https://rcem.ac.uk/news/shocking-waits-in-scotlands-aes-foi-2024

https://rcem.ac.uk/news/an-alarming-threat-to-patient-safety-over-a-million-older-patients-endured-12-hour-waits-in-englands-aes-last-year

There are many more targets where NHS Scotland does better including drug and alcohol treatment, IVF, but I’ll stop with one more. 90% or more of children and young people start treatment for mental health services for 3rd time in a row with 50% treated in only 5 weeks: https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/child-and-adolescent-mental-health-services-camhs-waiting-times/child-and-adolescent-mental-health-services-camhs-waiting-times-quarter-ending-june-2025/

If need more, try: https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/?s=waiting+times