Tag: healthcare

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Are Scottish doctors still likely to be less stressed than others in the UK? This survey will not tell us

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By Professor John Robertson OBA In the Guardian yesterday: Seven in 10 GPs suffer from compassion fatigue and struggle to empathise with patients because they are worn out from caring for them, a survey has found. Family doctors say they are so emotionally and physically exhausted from hearing about patients’ problems and circumstances that it is compromising the quality of care they provide. A poll of 1,855 doctors across the UK found that 71% of GPs and 62% of medics overall have experienced compassion fatigue, which undermines the doctor-patient relationship. “Compassion fatigue is effectively a hidden, secondary trauma with symptoms that can ultimately make it … Continue reading Are Scottish doctors still likely to be less stressed than others in the UK? This survey will not tell us

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Lib Dems find Scottish Nurses lose 3 days a year to mental health problems, fewer than UK average of 8

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In another of their many, waste-of-public-funds-to-dig-dirt-on-SNP, freedom of information requests, the Lib Dems in the Daily Record on Boxing Day: More than 700,000 days of nursing and midwifery staff time have been lost due to mental ill health since 2020, according to figures obtained by the Scottish Lib Dems. Freedom of information data showed 762,975 days were lost across the 14 territorial health boards. NHS Lanarkshire had the highest total in 2023/24, at 24,342 days lost. https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/more-700000-nursing-days-lost-34374193 There are 65 270 nurses and midwives employed by NHS Scotland. https://www.nursingtimes.net/workforce/scottish-nursing-vacancies-falling-but-still-stubbornly-high-06-12-2023/#:~:text=The%20number%20of%20nurses%20and,in%20response%20to%20the%20figures.&text=The%20numbers%2C%20published%20in%20a,working%20in%20the%20health%20service. Most UK full-time employees work around 260 days per year. https://zelt.app/blog/how-many-working-days-are-in-one-year/ So Scotland’s nurses … Continue reading Lib Dems find Scottish Nurses lose 3 days a year to mental health problems, fewer than UK average of 8

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Cancer waiting times – NHS Scotland saving hundreds of lives with quicker treatment and NHS England risking thousands with delay

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By Professor John Robertson OBA From Cancer waiting times 1 July to 30 September 2024, released today, the above graph and: 72.1% of patients started treatment within 62 days. 94.3% of patients started treatment within 31 days. The equivalent data for NHS England are 67.3% and 90.6%. On cancer waiting times Scotland is performing 7.4% and 4% better. Remember in a Scottish context, that means around 300 cancer patients per quarter seen on time and in England, around 3 000 not. Sources: https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/cancer-waiting-times/cancer-waiting-times-1-july-to-30-september-2024/ https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/cancer-waiting-times/ Support Scots Independent, Scotland’s oldest pro-independence newspaper and host of the OBA (Oliver Brown Award) at: https://scotsindependent.scot/FWShop/shop/ The Oliver Brown Award for advancing … Continue reading Cancer waiting times – NHS Scotland saving hundreds of lives with quicker treatment and NHS England risking thousands with delay

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Anas Sarwar will need to mask UK Labour’s ‘deepening failure’ to improve access to dentistry in England if Scots are not to just laugh in the teeth of Scottish Labour’s 2026 campaign

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By Professor John Robertson OBA In the Guardian today: Plans to end NHS dental care crisis not working, warns spending watchdog – National Audit Office finds ‘significant uncertainty’ as to whether pledge for extra 1.5m treatments will be fulfilled. Plans to end the deepening crisis in access to NHS dental care are failing, leaving patients unable to get treatment, according to a warning from the government’s spending watchdog. The National Audit Office’s (NAO) damning verdict on the “dental recovery plan” prompted patient groups to voice alarm that people’s struggles with decayed teeth represents “a serious public health concern”. A pledge to provide an extra 1.5m treatments … Continue reading Anas Sarwar will need to mask UK Labour’s ‘deepening failure’ to improve access to dentistry in England if Scots are not to just laugh in the teeth of Scottish Labour’s 2026 campaign

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Helen Puttick, ‘Scottish Health Correspondent’ in her Times article appears to be intent on misinforming readers and voters

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By stewartb From the disingenuous article in the Times yesterday: ‘In England Wes Streeting is demanding change in return for extra funding.’ What change? Something called ‘zero-tolerance’ and the introduction of ‘league tables’! Source: Nuffield Trust – ‘responds to announcement of new “zero tolerance for failure” NHS reforms‘ Press release November 13. ‘.. there is a danger the actions announced by the Secretary of State will worsen some of the patterns that got us into this mess. We know from the special measures for quality regime that “naming and shaming” NHS trusts can make it harder to recruit staff, which doesn’t help patient … Continue reading Helen Puttick, ‘Scottish Health Correspondent’ in her Times article appears to be intent on misinforming readers and voters

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As the Guardian highlights long ambulance wait deaths, how Scotland’s ambulances were FOUR times faster in early 2024 before BBC pulled the site where I got the facts

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By Professor John Robertson, OBA In the Guardian today, the above, and: A lot of people, like Dave, have had to wait for an ambulance. One patient in Wales waited 46 hours and 46 minutes after a fall. Ambulance response times vary across the UK. In England they rose sharply in September, and emergency care performance is also down, as the NHS heads into a difficult winter. A Guardian investigation found that, in 2022, the year Dave Strachan spent nine hours and 52 minutes waiting for an ambulance, more than 500 patients in England died after a delayed ambulance response. This included people who had been in accidents, … Continue reading As the Guardian highlights long ambulance wait deaths, how Scotland’s ambulances were FOUR times faster in early 2024 before BBC pulled the site where I got the facts

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Free prescription costs NOT increasing in real terms, saving money for taxpayer and saved thousands in the pandemic

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By Professor John Robertson Parroting New Labour and revealing a complete ignorance of matters that the public should hear of – in the Sunday Post, surely not. I’ll deal with how the cost is not climbing, how universal benefits save money and how they saved lives in the pandemic. Scotland’s free prescription costs are static in line with inflation despite a 29% increase in those over 75, over 10 years From Public Health Scotland, yesterday: The total (net) cost for dispensing items and providing services in 2023/24 was £1.62 billion, increasing by 6.5% from £1.52 billion in 2022/23. This follows a period … Continue reading Free prescription costs NOT increasing in real terms, saving money for taxpayer and saved thousands in the pandemic

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Scottish NHS dentist access – 95% registered and shocking 21% better than UK but they don’t want you to know that

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By Professor John Robertson OBA BBC Scotland today, all day: Six Scottish council areas are “dental deserts” with no practices able to take on new adult NHS patients within three months, BBC News research has found. Just one in every four dental practices in Scotland said they could offer NHS appointments to new patients within that timeframe. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gd9023018o This was another self-selecting shoddy research project with findings based on ‘those responding’ Not in the report: From Public Health Scotland in August 2024: 5,176,332 people were registered with an NHS dentist as at 30 June 2024 (94.5% of the Scottish population). 621,767 extensive clinical examinations … Continue reading Scottish NHS dentist access – 95% registered and shocking 21% better than UK but they don’t want you to know that

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THREE times as many wait more than 12 hours in English and Welsh A&E departments

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By Professor John Robertson: Today, the Express is headlining – Scots dying as A&E crisis worsens every day based on the weekly 4 hour waits for week ending 6 October. A simple look at the above graph is clear – post-pandemic with increasing numbers (122 000 in April 2022 to 143 000 in May 2024) attending, a dramatic increase in those waiting beyond target times but since January 2022, a clear stabilisation and even fall from that peak with significantly fewer waiting over 12 hours in December 2024 (42 000) than in December 2022 (49 000) Missing from the Express story … Continue reading THREE times as many wait more than 12 hours in English and Welsh A&E departments

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The whole agency locum question is a reflection of a real crisis in the Welsh NHS workforce!

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stewartb ‘BBC Scotland is, undoubtedly, using a Scottish psychiatrist as part of its continuous attritional narrative, ‘that Scots are incapable of running things for themselves’. I’m inclined to check out – for comparison and useful learning – how capable the British Labour Party, long in government in Cardiff, have proven itself to be in running NHS Wales. After all, we in Scotland need to know what might be ahead of us in 2026! For example, Health Education and Improvement Wales (HEIW) released its latest NHS Wales Workforce Trends Report (as at 31 March 2023) on July 25, 2024 – see https://heiw.nhs.wales/news/heiw-releases-latest-nhs-wales-workforce-trends-report/ . Here are some … Continue reading The whole agency locum question is a reflection of a real crisis in the Welsh NHS workforce!