Professor John Robertson OBA In the Guardian today, the above and: Analysis of NHS figures shows the potential bill for maternity negligence in England since 2019 has reached £27.4bn – far more than the health service’s roughly £18bn budget for newborns in that time. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jul/20/nhs-facing-absolutely-shocking-27bn-bill-for-maternity-failings-in-england With a tenth of the population, you might expect NHS Scotland to have paid out around £2.7 billion. I can find no data for just maternity related cases but for all complaints and for a period, one year longer: Health boards in Scotland have paid out more than £60 million in legal claims since 2018, … Continue reading NHS England paid out staggering 45 times as much, per head, for just maternity-related complaints as NHS Scotland did for all complaints

Professor John Robertson OBA What is ‘maternal death?’ Death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of the end of the pregnancy (includes giving birth, ectopic pregnancy, miscarriage or termination of pregnancy) from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management, but not from accidental or incidental causes http://www.who.int/healthinfo/statistics/indmaternalmortality/en/ In the Guardian today, the above and that in the most recent figures, for 2023, the maternal death rate was 12.67 per 100 000 births: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jul/20/maternal-deaths-rising-in-uk-despite-fewer-births-official-figures-show The most recent Scottish figure is 9 per 100 000: https://www.sad.scot.nhs.uk/bereavement/maternal-death/ The UK rate appears to be around 33% … Continue reading After 18 years maternal death rate in UK climbs to 33% higher than in Scotland

By Legerwood The new Edinburgh Royal Infirmary [900 beds compared to QEUH at 1 677 beds], one of Labour’s PFI hospitals was budgeted at £150 million to build but ended up costing £180 million to build. The PFI cost will be £1.3 Billion [QEUH £842m] but Lothian Health Board will not own it. As well as the PFI costs the Health Board had to pay an ANNUAL maintenance cost of £60 Million [QEUH £7.8m]. Dwarfs any such costs for QEUH. https://www.scotsman.com/health/ps60m-a-year-contract-thrown-into-doubt-1620362 The SNP eventually managed to get that annual cost reduced. They also managed to buy out the private parking … Continue reading Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, one of Labour’s PFI hospitals, will cost nearly TWICE as much as giant Glasgow hospital to build , is only just over HALF the size and costs EIGHT times as much to maintain annually

Professor John Robertson OBA In a particularly shameful piece of reporting, we see knowingly misleading figures on maintenance and the utterly unfounded association of those with infections linked only by Anas Sarwar and the poor parents he groomed for deeply cynical political reasons. First, that £78 million for 10 years of maintenance is an average of £7.8m per year for a building that cost £842 million to build in the first place. So, annual maintenance costs are less than 1 PERCENT! (0.93%) of that. I’m surprised it’s not more. The link between supposed building failures, infections and deaths – NONE. … Continue reading Complete lies about Glasgow’s ‘super hospital’

Professor John Robertson OBA Today, several US media outlets are report along the same lines as the above from US News: Living near Coldwater Creek in St. Louis, Missouri, during childhood was found to be associated with an increased risk of overall cancer, according to the findings of a study published in JAMA Network Open.  “Our research indicates that the communities around North St. Louis appear to have had excess cancer from exposure to the contaminated Coldwater Creek,” said corresponding author Marc G. Weisskopf, PhD, ScD, Cecil K. and Philip Drinker Professor of Environmental Epidemiology and Physiology, Department of Environmental Health, Harvard T.H. … Continue reading The weight of evidence from the US, Europe and Australia now overwhelms the dishonest research into nuclear energy and cancer risks carried out by UK ‘academics’ on behalf of UK Government bodies

From Douglas Fraser of the BBC, two days ago: Unemployment in Scotland is down, while it has risen in the rest of the UK. The monthly figures on the jobs market tell us the share of the adult population in Scotland searching for a job between March and May was down to 3.7%, while it was up to 4.7% across the UK. Now I now that it’s only 1% higher, crudely, but that’s 1% of around 4 000 000 adults in Scotland, 40 000 people. 1 as a percentage of 3.7 is 27%. What’s the stuff about employment figures not … Continue reading After 18 years, unemployment in UK 27% higher than in Scotland