From Public Health Scotland today: Of all cancelled planned operations during November 2022, for NHSScotland (excl. NHS Lothian) 714 (3.3%) were cancelled by the hospital based on clinical reasons, 444 (2.1%) were cancelled by the hospital due to capacity or non-clinical reasons, 590 (2.8%) were cancelled by the patient, and 95 (0.4%) were cancelled due to other reasons. The rate of planned operations cancelled by the patient has been on an upward trend since March 2021 and is similar to pre-pandemic levels. https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/cancelled-planned-operations/cancelled-planned-operations-month-ending-30-november-2022 The performance of NHS Scotland can only be measured in terms of the 444 (2.1%) which were … Continue reading NHS Scotland staffed and resourced to do 98% of operations on time

Reporting Scotland this morning happily parroting the ‘opposition parties’ and feasting on the Primary teachers strike and the First Minister’s ‘hospitals are full’ comment, repeats the call for the Scottish Health Secretary to resign. All of supposedly ‘our’ newspapers have the same full-blown scare on the NHS with no mention that our ambulance staff are not striking today. Failing badly in their claimed role as a taxpayer-funded public service provider, they don’t remind us that Scottish Ambulance staff are not on strike, unlike the ones triggering this sort of report elsewhere in the UK: I worry we’re killing people – … Continue reading As ambulance call centre workers in England & Wales ‘worry we’re killing people’, only the Scottish Health Secretary must resign?

The number of people with disabilities on social housing waiting list has almost doubled in the past five years according to figures from the Scottish Conservatives. The Party says there are currently 24 000 disabled people waiting for a flat or a house. That’s up from just under 10 000 in 2017. This is another direct feed from an opposition party to staff at Pacific Quay, not being covered anywhere else. Reports of this kind are increasingly being referred to as ‘Beatties’ in reference to BBC staffer John Beattie who is suspected of being a conduit for such stories. The … Continue reading Conservatives campaign for disabled housing? Don’t be daft

By stewartb On a lazy Saturday morning listening to BBC Radio 4, I was – to say the least – surprised to hear on the 11am UK news bulletin, in amongst big stories from the USA, from Westminster etc. a reference to a big story from Scotland. This news item (seemingly) worthy of such UK-wide profile was a demand from the Labour Party in Scotland – that’s from the third party in terms of seats in the Scottish Parliament – that the Scottish Government replicates a Tory policy. The latter is the capping of single bus fares in England at … Continue reading On the buses: Labour demands of the Scottish Government what Labour in England terms a Tory ‘half baked measure’

Thanks to reader gavinochiltree for alerting me to this. I cannot watch Kuenssberg. Fresh from demanding more maths teaching in schools, PM Sunak lies straight-faced on Kuenssberg this morning with wrong stats. In November 2022, 64.1% of admissions to full (ED) Scottish A&E departments were seen within 4 hours. 4.3% waited more than 12 hours. In the same period, in full (Type 1) English A&E departments, the figures were 54.4% and 10.2%. Scotland’s A&E (ED) departments were 18% better on the 4 hour target and, on the 12 hour target, more than twice as good. Kuenssberg’s reaction – none. I … Continue reading PM lies directly about A&E Waiting times in England and Scotland

At a time when the PM wants us all to be doing quadratic equations (no, no idea what they might be) into retirement, the Herald’s anon (nae wonder), fuelled by the Scottish Liberally Dumb Party, trumpets the above headline then this: There are more than 54 000 teachers in Scotland, 2 000 more than in 2019. 636 vacancies had to be advertised 1 or more times. So? Continue reading Rishi alerted as Herald and Lib Dumbs win worst maths in headline award

Regulars will be all-too-familiar with BBC Scotland’s long love affair with Scotland’s drug deaths tally: In 2019: Scotland has highest drug death rate in EU In 2021: Drug deaths in Scotland reach new record level In July 2022, as they begin to fall: However, Scotland continues to have by far the highest drug death rate recorded by any country in Europe. Often, these data would be used by opposition parties to accuse the SNP of betrayal and be platformed prominently in the BBC Scotland reports. Sky News today tells us: Northern Ireland has the joint highest female homicide rate in … Continue reading BBC Northern Ireland hides level of violence against women

With so few full Scottish polls, a sequence of sub-polls by the same pollster is our only way of reasonably assessing the notion of Labour recovery in Scotland, of the kind much hoped-for in the MSM here and in England. YouGov has done 4 polls since early December 2022 – 7th, 14th, 20th December 2022 and 4th January 2023 – and they tell a remarkably consistent story suggesting they know how to sample and that things are pretty much as they seem in their data: UK Con: 24, 23, 24, 25 UK Labour: 48, 48, 48, 46 UK Lib Dem: … Continue reading 4 YouGov polls in a row confirm Scottish Labour getting nowhere and SNP vote resilient

stewartb With Local Government and their services across the UK devolved, and with devolved governments having limited tax raising and severely limited borrowing powers, what happens in England is highly relevant to the financing of local government and of social care services in NI, Scotland and Wales. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies: ‘In England, councils are RESPONSIBLE FOR ORGANISING AND FUNDING THE VAST MAJORITY OF SOCIAL CARE SERVICES. Since 2010, these councils have experienced LARGE CUTS TO THEIR BUDGETS, and have MADE SUBSTANTIAL CUTS TO THEIR SPENDING ON SOCIAL CARE SERVICES IN RESPONSE. ‘Between 2009−10 and 2017−18, MEAN … Continue reading In England the burden of Local Government financing has been shifted towards Council Tax payers

stewartb So setting up the National Care Service ‘would be unjustifiably costly and disruptive during a time of financial crisis’. Anyone recall what conditions were like when the NHS was established? From the Nuffield Trust – ‘1948–1957: Establishing the National Health Service’: Sir Wilson Jameson, Chief Medical Officer to the Ministry of Health at the time, described the situation in 1947, the year before the NHS began: ‘The eighth year of austerity, 1947, was a testing year. Its first three months formed a winter of exceptional severity, which had to be endured by a people who in addition to rationing … Continue reading Would COSLA have halted the NHS as ‘unjustifiably costly and disruptive’ too?