The complainer: Image: BBC Scotland While walking the dog, I’ve had further thoughts on my previous post. Here’s what BBC Scotland’s Disclosure team claim: Almost a quarter of Scotland’s public charging points for electric vehicles (EVs) were faulty when BBC Disclosure did spot-checks on the network. A snapshot over a six-week period of the state of the 2,200 chargers installed using Scottish government grants uncovered issues at 535 units. Faults ranged from broken plugs and screens to the system being offline. Transport Scotland said it would review the data but its own measurements suggested only a 2% fault rate. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-63371759 To do … Continue reading EV charging points update: Has BBC Scotland made a howler?

BBC Scotland’s Disclosure team have a track record of following the wrong lorry of calves to Spain and interviewing an old lady upset at the lack of pandrops in her care home. Well, to be fair, it was a lack of exercise activities. Meanwhile, their equivalents elsewhere follow violent football thugs or fascist groups hiding in the valleys of Wales. Today, you can see their courageous reporter sitting in an electric car with a young women saying excitedly that she now sees other e-car drivers as ‘the competition.’ It’s the headline story for BBC Scotland: The team claim to have … Continue reading Official figures suggest 98% of charging points working but BBC Scotland’s fearless Disclosure team find someone

From Public Health Scotland today, we see that only 2.2% or 506 out of 22 688 cases, of all planned operations were cancelled due to a lack of staff or facilities. This is a dramatic fall from 3.8% or 708 cases. This type of cancellation is the only kind that can be considered a measure of performance and is a phenomenally low figure for any institution of this sizer and complexity. https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/cancelled-planned-operations/cancelled-planned-operations-month-ending-30-september-2022/ Continue reading Massive drop in operations cancellations as only just over 2% are cancelled due to lack of resources

Only 31.8% in 4 hours? In Europe? No… From Public Health Scotland today, for September 2022: 69% of attendances at A&E services were seen and resulted in a subsequent admission, transfer or discharge within 4 hours. https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/ae-activity-and-waiting-times/ae-activity-and-waiting-times-month-ending-30-september-2022 For the same month in England, the figure was 56.9%. https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/ae-waiting-times-and-activity/ae-attendances-and-emergency-admissions-2022-23/ NHS Scotland has thus performed 21.3% better. Remember, it’s not just 21.3%. That means thousands more seen within 4 hours in Scotland than if they’d been treated in England and hundreds of thousands more waiting more than 4 hours in England than if they’d been treated in Scotland. In Barking, Havering and … Continue reading Health Secretary praised as NHS Scotland emergency wards perform more than 20% better

Image: Creative Scotland In a properly randomised sample of 1 500 Scots, NatCen, found: Continue reading Massive Support for SNP Government and for a fairer more equal Scotland

The Kaye Adams show on BBC Radio Scotland regularly and disproportionally attracts negative comment on Scotland’s public services. Unionist activists get on too frequently to have a rant, uninterrupted. Often they’re undeclared members of the covert writing group made up of Scotland in Union members. In July 2020, I wrote this to Adams: Not even an acknowledgement. Here’s the list: How large and representative will the sample of callers be? Less than 10 and not at all. I can offer a better response to Kaye’s question using a twitterpoll of significantly more : NHS Patients: More than half experiencing no … Continue reading Kay Adams invites Scotland in Union to undermine NHS Scotland

Scotland does have less hospital beds than it had before. This is the planned result of changes to way patients are treated to reduce the risks of hospitalisation for those who can be treated in the community. From the Kings Fund in 2020 but of course missed by the SUN: Most other advanced health care systems have also reduced bed numbers in recent years. However, the UK has fewer acute beds relative to its population than many comparable health systems.https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/publications/nhs-hospital-bed-numbers The Kings Fund report lumps Scotland in with the UK but that’s deceptive. See this, also from 2020: Scotland has a … Continue reading A ‘crisis’ with nearly twice as many beds and 50% more nurses than NHS England?

…I’m sure Aneurin Bevan would be turning in his grave. On NHS crises – “responsibility lies where it lies, and people out there understand that too” – Labour’s Welsh First Minister, Mark Drakeford has a message for leaders of his Party in Scotland. By stewartb Being a bit of a political nerd, I quite often watch/read opposition parties’ assaults on Scotland’s First Minister at FMQs. I am also known to show particular interest in opposition parties’ assaults on the FM and the Cabinet Secretary for Health over the state of NHS Scotland. A pattern emerges from these observations of the … Continue reading ‘In [Labour] Wales we’re like a third-world country when it comes to our healthcare….’

Headlining on Reporting Scotland and on the BBC Scotland website, those damned ferries again. Meanwhile, all six Type 45 Royal Navy destroyers are still docked, at a time of heightened tensions with Russia. They’ve been there since 2018. They cost, initially, £1 billion each. Media coverage? Well only in the Portsmouth News in 2022: DELAYS in the costly £160m programme to fix unreliable engines propelling Britain’s £6bn fleet of destroyers have been branded a ‘bloody disgrace’ by a former head of the Royal Navy. https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/defence/delays-in-fixing-navy-destroyers-branded-bloody-disgrace-3586918 When does the Admiral expect to get his ships? Not for another six years! BBC … Continue reading Das Verdammt Boot! BBC Scotland’s Ferry Saga to be adapted by Netflix Germany

On the back of an interview this morning with the Health Secretary, where he acknowledged pressure on NHS Scotland, Reporting Scotland headlined and extended the story to paint a worrying picture for those in need of hospital care or those around them. A&E waiting times are once more paraded, in the complete absence of reference to the triage system which guarantees that those at serious risk are seen very quickly and only those who are not at risk need wait a bit longer. BBC Scotland news is a public service broadcaster, paid for by its audience through taxation and expected … Continue reading BBC Scotland risking lives to politicise the NHS