Is that all? Non-emergency? 114 Land Rover drivers taking folk in for a hospital check-up, like the 2 600 existing local civilian volunteers who know the area, and adding nothing to the 5 000 who can do emergencies? That’ll make a big difference? Why doesn’t Reporting Scotland do a special on the local volunteers and try to encourage more to come forward and help? We asked 102 people (25 times a typical BBC Scotland survey) if they’d seen an Army ambulance. Only 2%, 2, had. By 6pm please respond: Have you seen an Army ambulance today? — Talking-up Scotland (@ProfJWR) … Continue reading Read the small print – ‘a bunch’ of ‘non-emergency’ drivers ‘arrive in’ Scotland

An inquiry has begun, investigating the construction of the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital Campus, Glasgow, the Royal Hospital for Children and Young People, and Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Edinburgh. A mass of data and numerous qualified experts’ testimonies will place heavy demands on attending journalists. They have ignored that and lazily picked out a few catchy headlines from three or four distraught parents who are not even vaguely competent to judge what happened. Reporting like this, never happens on BBC England, UK, Wales or Northern Ireland. BBC Scotland staff are infected with a cultural virus which reduces brain function, planted … Continue reading Sturgeon ate my hamster

From Tom Gordonstoun in the Herald: NICOLA Sturgeon has been accused of presiding over an “international humiliation”, after Scotland’s state-owned shipyard wasn’t deemed good enough to build state-owned ferries. Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar laid the charge against the First Minister after Ferguson Marine’s bid didn’t even make the shortlist to build two new CalMac ferries last week. https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/19601068.ferries-international-humiliation-nicola-sturgeon-says-anas-sarwar/ Oh, a country of 5.4 million doesn’t win a contract to build ferries for use in that same country – international humiliation. I bet England, population 54 million does better, did better under Labour. The Spirit of Britain channel ferry, built … Continue reading ‘International humiliation’ for England as no Channel ferries built there

Following on from suggestions that health board members need punishing after allegedly murdering a child, BBC Scotland persist with their National Enquirer tribute act and suggest a Scottish hospital is ‘third world’ after reports of dirty water did not kill a child but did worry the parents. Third world? What, like the parts where contaminated drinking-water is estimated to cause 502 000 diarrhoeal deaths each year? Or like the countries where about 80% of illnesses are linked to poor water and sanitation conditions and1 out of every 5 deaths under the age of 5 worldwide is due to a water-related … Continue reading Could one mother’s opinion need a bit of perspective?

4% ahead of England on both the 1st and 2nd doses, NHS Scotland proves more resilient than NHS England. BBC Scotland not interested any more. Continue reading Scotland ahead on both doses

Isn’t breaking a record a good thing? Doesn’t this headline imply they did better than the record with more than 95% being seen in 4 hours? Wow! Wait, nope, it’s bad: The worst ever performance figures have again been recorded by hospital A&E units in Wales, reflecting the enormous pressure on emergency care in the NHS. Oh, How would BBC Scotland do this? BBC Wales is a very different creature form BBC Scotland. Apologies to regulars. See this: From BBC Wales this morning: As lockdown restrictions have eased ambulance staff are having the busiest summer of their lives. Some have … Continue reading How the Welsh break records?

By Alasdair Galloway: A few days ago I sent a letter to the Herald about Blair McDougall’s piece which they ran at the weekend (to be fair at the same time as a piece by Blair Jenkins). Whether my letter was worth publication or not, it was one of several I have put in over the last couple of weeks which have ended up on the spike. However, in reviewing the most recent letters I have sent, published or not, one thing became clear. Since 16th August, I had sent three letters critical of something or other written by Tom … Continue reading You have to be nice to Uncle Tam

I know lots of otherwise intelligent folk can be a bit blindsided by graphs but the above appears to be complete Scheiße. Let’s just take one they want us to be shocked by – nearly 2 000 waiting more than 8 hours in April 2021. I was shocked too but: During April 2021, 1,181 (1.1%) patients spent more than 8 hours in an A&E department. https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/ae-activity-and-waiting-times/ae-activity-and-waiting-times-month-ending-30-april-2021/ Even by May 2021, it’s still less than 2 000, at 1 782. Hmm Continue reading BBC Scotland faking the graphs too?

Apologies to regulars but I’m just going to repeat the evidence I posted at around 2am this morning. My health, now there’s a real crisis! Also, after that, the facts on the army ambulances: So, first, there’s a shortage of beds and the evidence is a graph of bed blocking which stops in March 2021! How about these more useful and recent ones: Hospital admissions only one quarter of what they were in February. Far more beds per head of population than other parts of the UK. Second they tell us NHS ‘staff absences spiked in September.’ Even sticking with … Continue reading Looks like a media construct, feels like a media construct: yes Alison, it’s a media construct

This Official Statistics bulletin presents information on the number of crimes and offences recorded by the police in Scotland during August 2021 and offers comparisons with the same month in 2020 and 2019. I appreciate that these data are almost certainly an under-estimation of actual crime levels but the trends remain of interest. Given that August 2020 was unusual, a period of lockdown, it seems more informative to use the comparison with August 2019. Reported crime in almost every category has fallen since 2019. you can read the full detail at the link above. Perhaps most encouraging are the 13% … Continue reading Significant fall in reporting of almost all types of crime in Scotland