This latest poll with Yes ahead 12%, follows and exceeds the previous Ipsos MORI poll on 19 October, with Yes ahead by 7%, Channel 4 on 23 November with Yes ahead 18% and the Redfield and Wilton poll on 27 November with Yes ahead by 4%. SNP support surges to 50%, a figure to wipe out the opposition except in a few pockets where Tory and Labour voters combine in an unholy alliance and, perhaps in the Northern Isles, though even there too the walls are crumbling. Support for the next Westminster election as a de facto referendum is even … Continue reading Four in row for Yes and SNP to wipe-out the others at Westminster

BBC Scotland today is headlining: Scotland loses UK climate change lead, advisers warn The extended report is based on the achievement of targets and a report indicating that many of these, recognised as more ambitious than those in the rest of the UK, have not been met. By sharp contrast, in recent reports on A&E targets, BBC Scotland’s are full of falling line graphs as NHS Scotland struggles with the challenges it faces. When they come to report today on climate change, for some reason graphs like this do not appear at all in the report: Nor of course is … Continue reading BBC Scotland: Only some plummeting graphs are good it seems

From Public Health Scotland today: Of all cancelled planned operations during October 2022, for NHSScotland (excl. NHS Lothian) 585 (3.1%) were cancelled by the hospital based on clinical reasons, 485 (2.6%) were cancelled by the hospital due to capacity or non-clinical reasons, 551 (2.9%) were cancelled by the patient, and 50 (0.3%) were cancelled due to other reasons. https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/cancelled-planned-operations/cancelled-planned-operations-month-ending-31-october-2022/ That only 2.6% of operations were cancelled due to a lack of staff or facilities is a phenomenally low figure for any institution of this size and complexity. Continue reading NHS Scotland ready to do 97.4% of operations on time

Lisa Summers, Reporting Scotland Down’s Unhealthy Correspondent, is reporting today: Why we should worry about what is happening in A&E https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-63859908 In more than 1,000 words, you’ll find none of the context which 1st Year Journalism students are taught is essential. Here’s some: From Public Health Scotland, today: During October 2022, 67.6% of attendances at A&E services were seen and resulted in a subsequent admission, transfer or discharge within 4 hours. In October 2022, NHS England A&E departments saw only 54.8% of those attending within 4 hours. Barking, Havering And Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust saw only 33.6% within 4 hours. NHS Wales data is … Continue reading Scotland’s emergency services up to 50% better and better than all other parts of UK

The above graphic is everywhere in social media but, for the life of me (!), I can’t locate the actual source document. ‘Leading the Way’ is a National Grid project, so it looks genuine. The picture is clear. Scotland is supporting the rest of the UK, massively, when it comes to electricity consumption. Just how massively? From TuS reader Golfnut, in August 2022, this: UK gov figures show exports of electricity as being 16 TWH, which just happens to be the same figure for Scotland. Statista has it as: In 2021, electricity exports from the United Kingdom amounted to 4.17 terawatt-hours, … Continue reading Rumpuk does not need nuclear power, it needs Scotland

Senior police officers say there’s no one reason for a spike in deaths on the the A9 this year. Headlining on BBC Scotland broadcasts, above, and on the website: The story will no doubt headline on Radio Scotland’s Good Mourning Scotland and Drivetime shows, with dramatic accusations from the opposition parties. The website report does have the crucial context: but the report misses something entirely – the pandemic. The very low level from 2019/20 to 2020/21 is explainable – people were driving far less and tourism in that area was massively reduced. So, if the 2018 level (5), in a … Continue reading 10 years of reducing A9 deaths due to SNP A9 improvements including speed cameras

Matt Hancock’s metaphors are murder but I suppose a diet of wallaby willies may have infected his brain. The facts, clearly not of interest to most former Tory ministers tell no lies. The situation in Scotland compared to that in England, just as Hancock was moved on from Health Secretary, in late 2021: The lowest infection rate in the UK, over the whole pandemic, by some way. The lowest current infection rate by an even bigger gap as the new variant arrives. The highest vaccination rate for all three vaccines but especially the booster jag. The second lowest death rate, … Continue reading Matt Hancock Fact Check: Sturgeon’s Covid plan saved many thousands

The Herald’s front page headline, perhaps not for the first time, has ‘soared’ into the frankly unbelievable. I’ll take the second part first, if I may. Mortality rate soars? From the National Records of Scotland, last week: 28% of the 63,587 deaths registered last year were considered preventable or treatable, up from 27% in 2020.  The rate of avoidable deaths in 2021 was 4% higher than the previous year. Half of the increase in the latest year is attributable to COVID-19 deaths which are considered preventable.  https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/news/2022/avoidable-deaths-increase-by-4-percent So, 1% in the last year is soaring? Note the last bit about … Continue reading Mortality rate soaring? Oh no it isn’t!

Again the Guardian today: Care workers have hit back at claims by the former health secretary Matt Hancock that the Covid virus was brought into homes by infected staff. In his book, the Pandemic Diaries, which is being serialised in the Daily Mail, Hancock said only a small proportion of cases were caused by his decision to discharge patients from hospital without testing. “The vast majority of infections were brought in from the wider community, mainly by staff,” he wrote in May 2021, citing data from the UK Health Security Agency, which found that 1.2% of care home cases between … Continue reading Retired prof defends Matt Hancock because he was almost correct

There’s Steve Barclay above. Here’s what the Guardian tells us today: Ministers were under intense pressure last night to open new pay talks that could avert a devastating series of NHS strikes as health unions suggested a deal could be struck if both sides were willing to negotiate and compromise. Amid claims from Labour and from NHS sources that ministers appeared to be playing politics and deliberately “spoiling for a fight”, union leaders strongly suggested that an improved, but still sub-inflation, offer similar to that made to Scottish health unions at the end of last month by the Holyrood government … Continue reading Barclay or Yousaf? Which of these Health Secretaries should resign?