By reader George S Gordon

On Wednesday the Scotsman had an article based on Unison Scotland surveys of its members in the NHS, headlined –

“Exclusive: Survey reveals ‘shocking’ concerns over health and care staffing”.

The article refers to two surveys, one in December 2025 and the other in February 2026. 

Odd that they’re reporting those now!

Very unusually, the article provides survey response numbers – 2,000 for the December survey and 3,000 for the one in February.

The NHS Scotland headcount is around 188,000, and the headcount of Unison employees in the NHS is around 60,000.

The full article is at: https://archive.is/23k8p

From it:

Members of the largest trade union in the NHS have raised “shocking” concerns over unsafe staffing levels despite legislation aimed at tackling the issue.

Unison said 46 per cent of survey respondents felt patient safety had regularly been put at risk by inadequate staffing over the last 12 months, while 32 per cent said this had happened frequently.

So, in addition to this being a classic self-selecting, ‘squeaky wheel’ survey, of no statistical value whatsoever, only around 1 000 of Unison’s 60 000 members, 1.66% could be bothered to suggest safety had been put at risk and only 1% said it happened frequently.

Unison is affiliated to the Labour Party, including in Scotland through its dedicated Scottish Labour Link. https://unison-scotland.org/labour-link/