As twice as many wait more than 12 hours in NHS England’s A&E, Jackie Baillie rides the Scotsman off its readership cliff again

Scottish Labour’s unhealthy spokesperson seem to be a columnist at the Unhealthy Scotsman these days.

Today, further riding the Scotsman off its readership cliff, she has:

The shocking figures that reveal how bad Scotland’s A&E crisis has got under SNP – Jackie Baillie

Emergency departments in two flagship hospitals can sometimes be forced to deal with more than double or triple the number of patients they are designed to treat

And then this sickly rib-tickler

Candour is so important in politics. Voters deserve to hear the truth from those in power and to know they understand their duty to get things right.

Here, once more the actual facts:

By stewartb

When reading across the press statements that the RCEM makes regularly on the waiting times performances of the NHS in England, the north of Ireland, Scotland and Wales, it is rare to find it refer directly to between nation comparisons. In particular, the longstanding better performance of NHS Scotland tends not to be acknowledged although clearly evident in time series graphs tucked away in the RCEM’s website.

Rare but not never! One such occurrence in a recent RCEM press statement on NHS Scotland (see below) strikes me as rather ‘odd’ if not perverse!

For context, from the RCEM (October 8) on NHS England: “10% of A&E patients waited more than half a day last month as ‘unacceptable’ ED crisis rages on..”

‘The proportion of patients waiting 12 hours is the highest it has been in four years, at 10.1%. That means a total of 157,574 people waiting more than half a day in an Emergency Department (ED) last month.’ (my emphasis)

And it notes: ‘Last month, an average of 13,647 beds were occupied by patients who were medically fit to be discharged – but could not leave hospital. This is typically because of delays in the hospital or a lack of social care capacity.’

Dr Ian Higginson, RCEM President, is quoted: “We need urgent and concrete action to tackle delays at the ‘back door’ of our hospitals from the government.

“The Prime Minister has made it clear he intends to reform social care – that is a welcome step, but we cannot wait years before a decision is made about what changes are needed. There has been too much kicking of cans down the road.” Dr Higginson should be asking why the PM has not drawn on the solutions to such A&E and social care challenges available to him from Lord Sarwar and his former deputy in Scotland, Dame Jackie Baillie. Did they not have well worked-out, ready to implement solutions to similar challenges in Scotland?

Missing from the RCEM’s press statement is this: the official NHS England report notes that 60.6% of patients attending its Type 1 (main) Emergency Departments during September were admitted, discharged or transferred within the 4 hour standard. This compares to 61.1% in August 2026 and 61.1% in September 2025.

Now to NHS Scotland and the rare but ‘odd’ comparison the RCEM opts to make. On NHS Scotland, on October 7: ‘RCEM: Worst August Emergency Department performance on record shows need for urgent action ahead of winter.’

The RCEM states: ‘Only 62.3% of patients were admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours, far below the Scottish Government’s 95% target and almost on a par with performance levels in England.’ So 62.3% compared to 60.6% is deemed newsworthy – and note the use of ‘only’: has the RCEM set out to frame press statements to be especially unfavourable to NHS Scotland?

And then from the RCEM, this in Scotland: ‘5.4% of patients waited more than 12 hours, equivalent to 6,965 patients, almost 20 times higher than July 2019 levels.’

Note the comparison with 2019, one NOT made for NHS England. And note the ABSENCE of a comparison between 5.4% in Scotland and 10.1% in England. This decision NOT to make a comparison of what are very substantially different 12 hour stats in Scotland and in England is despite the fact that it is precisely such long stays in A&E – not 4 hour ones – that the RCEM argues adversely impacts patient mortality rates. Odd?

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5 thoughts on “As twice as many wait more than 12 hours in NHS England’s A&E, Jackie Baillie rides the Scotsman off its readership cliff again”

  1. “When reading across the press statements that the RCEM makes regularly on the waiting times performances of the NHS in England, the north of Ireland, Scotland and Wales, it is rare to find it refer directly to between nation comparisons.” Yes, because the RCEM statements are absolutes not comparatives and made by sincere but amateur political speakers who have a real job to do and who want to do that job as well as possible for all of us. The most NHS of all, and constantly being talked down. Why are the greedy bastard private practice moonlighters not being highlighted on TUS. Where is the removal of charitable status and imposition of VAT on NHS-destroying ‘private practice’? What about the near destruction of NHS dental services. And the amalgam mercury poisoning for the plebs with lovely white composite for the payers. After amalgam has been banned in just about every first world country. Why not just brand the plebs as such then get them to smile and gleam mercury to the camera. It’s all such a series of scandals TUS, but the only genuinely completely NHS service left with probably the least corrupt doctors gets a daily slating! When RCEM/A&E are gone you’ll know the NHS is gone. Hit the right targets!

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  2. O/T apologies , long comment, no need to read if yea cannae be bothered (don’t blame you).

    Calling Malcolm Offord & Thomas Kerr to ask them if they watched last night’s ITV news report on the racist & sexist comments made by Reform UK Councillors and Candidates in England (is it only there though ?).

    Reminds me of when the BBC reported on Reform UK on their BBC website in March 2026 via this headline “Reform UK suspends Scotland candidate over financial allegations” .

    That also, as an article , included other Reform candidates suspect opinions in one of them “spreading rumours about asylum seekers moving into a former school in Perthshire” and also another Reform candidate “calling former First Minister Humza Yousaf a “grandstanding Islamist moron” and said “he’s not British”.

    So then at the end of that BBC article there was analysis by BBC Scotland political correspondent, Philp Sim, where he wrote ” Reform has always been a party comfortable with saying things that others might hesitate to voice” and he also wrote “If that causes controversy – as it frequently does – then it gets people talking about the issues they want to discuss” .

    Then he, Sim, wrote “Other parties know this, but are quite happy to play along by piling in with criticism – because they like the idea of Reform as a sort of bogeyman to encourage their supporters out to vote“.

    Watching last night’s ITV report on Reform UK makes me wonder whether Philip Sim from the BBC stands by his above ‘observations’ in March 2026, in that “Reform has always been a party comfortable with saying things that others might hesitate to voice“.

    Perhaps “others” are just not racist or sexist, so then Philp they , as people, would not want to “voice” some of the opinions that those within Reform UK want to “voice”.

    Last night ITV News did a report on Reform UK councillors in England, & also a Welsh member too , making racist & sexist remarks.

    One of the issues that they noted was the fact that Nigel Farage, in 2024, had made assurances that “Reform UK candidates for local elections in 2025 will be “vetted” following controversial comments during the General Election“.

    Not within this ITV report , but still pertinent to this subject , was that in 2024 Farage defended a Reform UK UK GE candidate, Ian Gribbin, who was standing in the Bexhill and Battle’s constituency .

    Gribbin had said that “Britain would be “far better” if it had “taken Hitler up on his offer of neutrality” instead of fighting the Nazis”.

    Then when speaking to the media on these comments “Farage dismissed the remarks as “thought bubbles” and eccentric views, arguing that everyone says silly things in online chat rooms and refused to drop him as a candidate”.

    In June 2024 it was also reported that “Ian Gribbin, the party’s candidate in Bexhill and Battle, also wrote online that women were the “sponging gender” and should be “deprived of health care”.

    Indeed previously , in posts from 2022 , Gribbin, praised Russian President Vladimir Putin. (of course we all remember Nathan Gill , former leader of Reform UK in Wales, who delivered pro-Russian speeches in the European Parliament then it was revealed that “he accepted up to £40,000 in bribes to promote Russian and pro-Russian political interests” and he was subsequently jailed for 10 and a half years in prison under the UK Bribery Act 2010).

    Previously in June 2022 “Gribbin criticised women, writing on the (Unherd) site’s message board: “Do you think you could actually work and pay for it all too like good citizens? Men pay 80% of tax – women spend 80% of tax revenue. On aggregate as a group you only take from society. Less complaining please from the ‘sponging gender'””. He added that women are “subsidised by men to merely breath (sic)”.

    In July 2022, Mr Gribbin also posted on the Unherd website: “Britain would be in a far better state today had we taken Hitler up on his offer of neutrality…. but oh no Britain’s warped mindset values weird notions of international morality rather than looking after its own people”.

    This guy, Gribbin, was the candidate for Reform UK in the 2024 GE !

    This guy was obviously not vetted at all by Reform UK’s , checks notes, vigorous vetting process , as Reform UK knew about his comments prior to the 2024 UK GE , yet they still allowed him to stand as a candidate to potentially become a Reform UK MP !

    Now what was interesting about last night’s ITV’s news report, as in their exposé, of Reform UK Councillors and candidates was that one of their Councillors was a former Tory Councillor who then defected to Reform UK.

    It was reported that “ITV undercover reporters joined Reform UK councillor, Alan Feeney, in Solihull, in the West Midlands, where he was campaigning to retain his seat on the council, having defected from the Tory party in 2025″.

    Now he , Feeney, told the ITV undercover reporters “the area has been “infested” with Asian families, and he called them “absolute parasites”.

    Later in the film, he is recorded saying: “I’d be saying no more than one per cent of British population can be non-white.”

    So as a former Tory with those racist opinions , I wonder then what the vetting process was for him to be selected by the Tories as a former Tory candidate, who then won a seat as a Tory councillor.

    But apparently after last night’s ITV news report on Reform UK the BBC did an article and reported that “The Conservatives said: “Nigel Farage promised to make Reform ready for government. These sorry individuals are proof he has failed.”

    Well one of those “sorry individuals” was once one of their Tory “sorry individuals”, so then surely they, the Tories, also “failed” in allowing him to once be a candidate for the Tory party, who then became a Tory Councillor. (before he, like many other Tories, also defected to Reform UK)

    Also were any of the other “sorry individuals” filmed by ITV also former Tory candidates or Tory Councillors ?

    What that’s saying again about “not all people who vote for [X] are racists, but all racists vote for [X]”.

    So then I wonder whether that could also be applied to some of the candidates for , or the existing politicians within, X Y & Z , who were formerly with other parties ?

    To substantiate the “racism” label connected to Reform UK then all one needed to do was to access the Blue Sky account of Reform Party UK Exposed , as they got there long before ITV did , in them regularly exposing racist comments made by Reform UK candidates and also via elected Reform UK Councillors.

    I think we are now seeing much of the media establishment gunning for Reform UK , SKY News did a report on Reform UK Scotland which was called “Inside Reform UK Scotland” which was very ‘revealing’ on some of the suspect opinions of some of their 2026 Scottish election candidates and party members .

    Channel 4 showed undercover footage in them “showing James Orr (Reform UK’s head of policy) and Dan Jukes (Nigel Farage’s senior aide) discussing ways to bypass UK electoral laws on foreign political donations and unlabelled opinion polling worth over £32,000” .

    Where they also showed that “Farage was briefly captured in footage at a lunch in Clacton where the setup was discussed”

    He then denied any wrongdoing, stated he “frankly wasn’t listening” during parts of the conversation, and claimed he was “unaware of how the polling or funds were arranged beforehand”.

    Now we have ITV News and their undercover report on Reform UK Councillors and candidates and their racist and sexist comments. (also some other Refornm UK candidates stated that they could and would say anything to get elected , then just do what they want secretly when elected).

    So what about the BBC ?

    Well there is yet another Reform UK panellist, James Evans, on BBC QT tonight.

    James Evans, who was also formerly another Tory who defected to Reform UK and who was reported, before his defection, to have frequently “criticized Reform UK, previously describing the party’s output and policies as “rubbish” and “populist slogans in late 2024”, and calling the idea of a Reform government “scary”.

    Another hypocrite then, whose former opinion (as a Tory) of Reform UK was then massively changed as an opinion, to such an extent that he defected to them, as in the same party whose policies he had previously declared were “rubbish” and who he thought that it would be “scary” to have them, Reform UK, as a future UK government.

    (As in the same Reform UK who he then defected to and so now sits in the Senedd (Welsh Parliament) as a Member of the Senedd (MS) representing Reform UK for the constituency of Brycheiniog Tawe Nedd).

    Let’s not allow the media to just frame this as only being Reform UK’s problem (though for much of their members it does seem a tad too blatant) as many of Reform UK’s candidates and their politicians were formerly Tories , so the question today on racism & sexism within Reform UK should also extend to other parties as well, as in some of the other parties who all sit on their respective self appointed moral high horses to critique the SNP and so then declare them as being “divisive” and so then undesirable as a party to vote for.

    In other news , surprising news that is, Rupert Lowe last posted on ‘X’ over 15 hours ago – that’s unusual for him is it not ? (the time is now 10.53am on 15 October).

    #LyingLow or Lowe staying low, I wonder why (have you seen his suspect posts on X and the racist responses to his posts by Restore Britain members).

    Well my advise to all parties and indeed a lot of the media is to ‘Look in the mirror’ .

    However it does seem to be that currently some of the media appear to be getting spooked at the idea of a possible future Reform UK government in the UK (what with some of the media saying that we could have an early UK GE – perhaps they do not want a similar situation as is happening in America , where Trump always declares much of the media as being #FakeNews , or rather those who own much of the UK media prefer other parties to Reform UK).

    Undecided Scots are you YES yet ?

    Liz S

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