A winter crisis in NHS Scotland eh? Given what we know, that Scotland, compared especially to England, has the best-performing A&E departments, significantly more beds, nurses and doctors, all of its hospitals with mortality rates in the expected range and currently with far fewer Covid patients in ICU, BBC England, Wales and Northern Ireland will surely be all over this story too? England? Nope. Wales? Nope. Northern Ireland? What’s going on BBC Scotland? It’s as if you have a different agenda. To find something that might by association undermine the Scottish Government because if they were successful in gaining independence, … Continue reading BBC Scotland’s proxy war on the SNP, using the NHS, continues

The clearly shocked Sandesh Gulhane, above, after quickly getting his scrubs on for the cameras, during his one day-a-week practising to maintain his registration as the Tory ‘doc’, pops up on Reporting Scotland with a hair-raising claim to keep the NHS Scotland ‘crisis’ narrative going. The actual report is of one GP practice in Tayside, ‘Friockheim’ having to close, due to losing its last GP. Gulhane is allowed to say the situation in Friockheim ‘is not unique’ and that there are wider shortages. No wider data is offered to reinforce or contradict that. Then again, is anything not unique? Friockheim, … Continue reading Proxy war on SNP politicising the NHS

after contracting Coronavirus last year, has told the BBC she believes hospital officials concealed the full circumstances of his death to protect the reputation of the hospital. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/live/bbcone This is today’s headline story which will be repeated as many as 12 times by the end of the day and dominates the website: Andrew Slorance went into Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital for cancer treatment a year ago. His wife Louise believes he caught Covid there as well as another life-threatening infection. The health board said it had been “open and honest”. It said there had been no attempt to conceal … Continue reading Proxy War: One more Glasgow Hospital infection rumour from only one more relative

Today, three out of five headline stories are about the the public inquiry into new Scottish hospitals in Glasgow and Edinburgh. In one case, the most photographed mother and child tragedy image ever, appears again to make the puzzling case that a forthcoming inquiry, regardless of the facts, must come up with the finding that suits the ‘truth’ acceptable to the parents and to the opposition politician, sponsoring their protest against the health board’s expert report. As Scotland’s remarkable success in suppressing the coronavirus outbreak continues and as England slides into despair, BBC Scotland gives that little attention and no … Continue reading BBC Scotland’s proxy war ramps up

In the Herald today Hannah Rodger presents Miles Briggs to rant unconvincingly about documents the Herald claims to have ‘uncovered’ where the ‘lead infection control doctor’ said ‘it is possible the dialysis point was the source’ but also that the fungus could be ‘ubiquitous’ and ‘present in the air.’ For some reason, this possibility raised back in June is presented as a contradiction. Of course, Briggs uses this familiar platform to attack both the Health Secretary and the First Minister. Readers will know that his bosses in England are never blamed for the third-world conditions they have produced across many … Continue reading Herald colludes with Tories to wrongly malign Scottish Hospital in now desperate proxy war on the SNP

As the Guardian breaks ranks with the other media, prompted by my correction, to reveal that NHS England A&E is a staggering 20% less effective than NHS Scotland with only 74.5% as opposed to 89.2% seen in 4 hours, BBC Scotland ignore the facts and go for two single cases of alleged failure. The child infection death story is an unsubstantiated case from 2017 fed to BBC Scotland by a Labour politician. Hospital-acquired infection deaths are, of course, much lower than they were under Labour administrations but longer-term trends, of clear public interest, are not mentioned. The editorial decision to … Continue reading BBC Scotland’s proxy war against the SNP is now in election mode and the Health Secretary is first in line

Beginning only yesterday, BBC Wales have shown worrying signs of being unable to attack either the nationalists or Labour by blaming them for NHS problems, even as the latter show signs of softening on independence and after their First Minister shared a platform with the Scottish First Minister. Today, the symptoms worsened and a crack team headed up by Sarah Smith, the BBC’s Foreign Correspondent in Glasgow, has dashed south to try to teach them how to do it. Today’s symptoms suggest a complete breakdown in their immunity against independence for Wales: In none of the above reports were any … Continue reading BBC Wales losing Proxy War! BBC Scotland team in emergency dash to Llanfrechfa

10% vacancies is a bit high but psychiatrists are only one group within a wider service. Here are some other stories not reported: NHS Psychology staffing soars nearly 40% under SNP Staffing across all three professional groups in Psychology Services continues to climb steadily to meet the ever-increasing demand. Click to access 2019-03-05-Psychology-Workforce-Summary.pdf Psychology waiting times hold constant and close to target despite increased demand Remember, targets in many other parts of the developed world are recognised to be aspirational and there is no media frenzy when they are consistently not ‘hit.’ Click to access 2019-03-05-WT-PsychTherapies-Summary.pdf 88% of elderly patients begin psychological … Continue reading BBC Scotland’s sickening proxy war against the SNP using the vulnerable as cannon fodder

Once more Reporting Scotland reveals a love for the partisan views of trades unionists nakedly pursuing the interests of their members. It’s a sharp and comedic contrast with the BBC’s past disdain for mine and railway worker unions in the 70s and 80s. Unable to land punches directly on the popular and competent Scottish Government, BBC Scotland tend habitually to pounce on any supposed failures in those services – health, police, education – which they are responsible for. Mud sticks they hope secretly. Today, we return to the supposed teacher shortages and undue pressures in the secondary school classrooms. The … Continue reading The state broadcaster’s proxy war against the SNP now uses a dodgy dossier of ‘research’ on teachers