As the Royal College of Nursing launches research claiming ‘Two-thirds of NHS nurses believe lack of staff is putting patients at risk, survey finds’ and ‘across the UK’, at their conference in Liverpool today, their Scottish branch continues to ignore, conceal, the facts on staffing.

In the Herald today, there’s no mention of this crucial context their readers might need:

There are 67 700 nurses in NHS Scotland as of March 2025 figures. ¹

To compare meaningfully, you know the drill, all things being equal in terms of patient load per nurse, but with 10 times the population, NHS England would need around 10 times as many nurses – 677 000.

As of November 2025, they had only 367 300!² They have 300 000 fewer than they’d need to match staffing levels in Scotland.

The ratio of patients to nurses is thus almost twice as good in Scotland.

Sources:

1. https://turasdata.nes.nhs.scot/media/jwsipa4h/workforcereport_june2025-no-agency.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com
2. https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10539/?utm_source=chatgpt.com