Treat negativity about Scotland’s NHS and social care services with healthy scepticism: evidence of the Royal College of Nursing being plain wrong and opting to omit relevant positives.

My apologies to stewartb but I’ve used my perhaps unattractive unilateral editorial powers to replace his more mature header above with my more combative version at the top!

By stewartb

When political advocacy in advance of a parliamentary election takes by its own admission, a ‘gloves off‘ tone, it seems reasonable to point out a clear error in case-making.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) recently published this report: ‘The Nursing Workforce in Scotland 2026’. As well as reviewing workforce statistics, it expresses strong, negative views of the then Scottish Government.

‘Our election message was simple – ‘the gloves are off, nursing is ready to be heard’. It was a warning to candidates of all parties that, whoever was elected to form the new Scottish government, nursing staff were demanding action, not warm words and promises.’

‘The analysis of workforce data in this report underlines just why our members have taken such a forthright stance. Five years on from the 2021 Scottish parliament election, they have seen little meaningful improvement to health and care services ..’

In support of these views, the RCN refers to public attitudes regarding health and social care services in Scotland. It states: ‘It is not just our members who have been expressing serious dissatisfaction – the public are also frustrated at the way health and care services are being run. Analysis by The King’s Fund and the Nuffield Trust of the British Social Attitudes survey shows that while public satisfaction with how the NHS in Scotland is run has increased slightly, around two-thirds of people remain dissatisfied and 80% believe too little is spent on the NHS. The analysis also noted that satisfaction with social care in Scotland was lower than in England and Wales (The King’s Fund and Nuffield Trust, 2025).’ (my emphasis)

This is the report being referenced by the RCN: The King’s Fund and Nuffield Trust (26 March, 2026) Public satisfaction with the NHS and social care in 2025 – results from the British Social Attitudes survey. (https://assets.kingsfund.org.uk/f/256914/x/bd8551f32f/public_satisfaction_nhs_bsa2025_march2026.pdf)

So “satisfaction with social care in Scotland was lower than in England and Wales”?   Mindful of too prevalent a tendency in certain quarters for talking down Scotland, based on experience, it seemed prudent to check out what The King’s Fund report actually found! The relevant chart on public attitudes to social care provision is reproduced below.

Note the research question; note the comparison between views for England, Wales and Scotland; and crucially, note the labelling of the X-axis of the chart! In short, the public satisfaction data show the opposite of what the RCN claims: the percentage of those in the British Social Attitudes Survey who are ‘very or quite dissatisfied’ with social care is lower in Scotland than elsewhere, NOT higher! Now there may be a clue as to why the RCN got it so wrong – how it came to misinterpret the chart. In the same Scotland workforce report, the RCN also states: ‘Analysis by The King’s Fund and the Nuffield Trust of the British Social Attitudes survey shows that while public satisfaction with how the NHS in Scotland is run has increased slightly, around two-thirds of people remain dissatisfied …’ Again reproduced below is the relevant graphic from The King’s Fund report:

Whilst the RCN report damns with faint praise a small increase in public satisfaction with the NHS in Scotland, in this instance – unlike where it thought (wrongly) it had a useful negative on social care to exploit – it opts to avoid any reference to the comparisons with England and Wales. Why this blindspot? Surely not deliberate omission because the results are favourable (again as it turns out) to Scotland?

You may agree with me that such examples do little to increase trust in an organisation’s political advocacy! They certainly demonstrate the ongoing need to keep a close watch on advocacy organisations as well as on the MSM and opposition politicians who pass context- and perspective-free negative comment on Scotland, its government and public services.