Tag: healthcare

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Prescription charges up to nearly £10 per item in England and Scottish Labour will not protect Scots from that

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By Professor John Robertson Thanks again to Dottie for alerting me to this. in the Manchester Evening News tonight, the above table and: Millions of NHS patients in England will face higher medicinal costs from next week. The cost of a single NHS prescription will go up to almost £10, following an increase of 25p this year to £9.90. This is an increase of around 2.5 per cent, which is below the rate of inflation, but the increase could still make life more difficult for people on low fixed incomes. https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/cost-of-living/full-list-new-nhs-prescription-29064519 Never mind Labour will sort this out and protect the vulnerable … Continue reading Prescription charges up to nearly £10 per item in England and Scottish Labour will not protect Scots from that

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STV allow Sarwar to misuse basic statistics to lie about the best dentistry in Britain AND ignore Christmas!

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By Professor John Robertson Given a free campaign platform with no professional journalism in sight, Anas Sarwar is allowed by STV to claim Scotland faces a two-tier dentistry system, because: It comes after figures at the end of last year showed a drop in the number of people being seen by NHS dentists. Data from Public Health Scotland revealed that in December 2023 there were 245,501 patients who were seen or had contact with an NHS dentist, down from 396,084 the previous month. The number of dental treatments carried out on the NHS fell from 733,596 to 542,897 in the … Continue reading STV allow Sarwar to misuse basic statistics to lie about the best dentistry in Britain AND ignore Christmas!

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BBC Scotland’s Eva was ‘inoperable’ because of ‘nursing shortages’ caused by the demands of the private hospitals Scottish Labour must now support

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By Professor John Robertson BBC Scotland milking another sick child story again. I’m amazed Anas Sarwar is not bedside cuddling her. BBC Scotland, last year and today, pin the blame on the SNP in government with: Mr Adams had previously claimed that nursing shortages at the Edinburgh children’s hospital were contributing to some young patients waiting up to three times longer for spinal surgery than they were pre-pandemic. First, there’s no mention in their report that Scotland has far more nurses and doctors per head of population than England. In 2023, Under the SNP government, we have over 28,000 more … Continue reading BBC Scotland’s Eva was ‘inoperable’ because of ‘nursing shortages’ caused by the demands of the private hospitals Scottish Labour must now support

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Listening to Alex Cole Hamilton is like pulling your own teeth

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Alex Cole Hamilton – leader of the 5th biggest party gets another platform to misleadingly attack the SNP. Tonight, he even claims, and STV don’t challenge it, that declines in dentists doing NHS treatment is leading to people buying tools on Amazon to do dentistry themselves. So, first, the availability of dentistry in Scotland: 95.4% of the Scottish population were registered with an NHS dentist as at 30 September 2022. Nearly all adults living in the most deprived areas were registered with an NHS dentist in September 2022, compared to 91.9% in the least deprived areas. https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/dental-statistics-registration-and-participation/dental-statistics-nhs-registration-and-participation-24-january-2023 Meanwhile in England: Thousands of children … Continue reading Listening to Alex Cole Hamilton is like pulling your own teeth

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If you claim free prescriptions that you’re not entitled to, you could have to pay a penalty charge of up to £100 – in one of the 4 nations

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stewartb I stumbled across an online article from the ‘UK edition’ of The Sun dated 5 April with this headline: ‘DRUG DEAL Brits face having to make ‘unbearable’ decisions ahead of NHS prescription charge rise next month – The exact amount your prescription will rise by and who is exempt from charges.’ The main news is that ‘Charges for prescriptions will increase by 2.59 per cent as of May 1, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) announced.’ There are a less serious remark to be made about the piece and a wider and more serious observation. Throughout the … Continue reading If you claim free prescriptions that you’re not entitled to, you could have to pay a penalty charge of up to £100 – in one of the 4 nations

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Prime Minister Sunak defends wrong NHS record

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By stewartb From the BBC News website today (11 April): ‘PM defends NHS record as targets missed in England’. Today’s release of waiting times performance data for NHS England merited a high profile on Radio 4’s Today programme this morning. So what have we learned? In this online BBC article we’re told: ‘The NHS recovery plan set a target for the end of March for 76% of patients attending A&E to be admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours.’ (The target used to be 95%.) And then this: ‘.. some 74.2% of patients were seen within four hours in A&Es … Continue reading Prime Minister Sunak defends wrong NHS record

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The politicised campaign against one of the safest hospitals in the UK

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Glasgow’s supposedly ‘troubled‘ super-hospital, the QEUH, has been a steady supplier of stories based on one or two statistically insignificant cases, Scottish Labour ‘ambulance-chasing’ of these few cases and infections ‘linked to‘ deaths there. Try googling ‘QEUH deaths‘ and you’ll see how obsessive the media interest has been. Today, Reporting Scotland is headlining a story of a complaint by some staff based on possible risks with no actual figures to prove any consequences in terms of deaths in the hospital. For years, now, I’ve been trying to counter this shameless demonising of an institution in a proxy war against SNP … Continue reading The politicised campaign against one of the safest hospitals in the UK

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Beauty treatment – BBC ecstatic to report ‘Scotland worst in Europe’ again as Fife woman dies in Türkiye

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beauticians providing customers with cosmetic injections, according to healthcare professionals. Close thing there with that claim. Türkiye is in the Eurovision Song Contest and many go there for cosmetic surgery. BBC Scotland, first thing and throughout the day has another ‘expert’ to damn the Scottish Government for lack of action. Yesterday, it was a London-based climate change rep. The ‘healthcare professionals?’ Frances Turner Traill of the British Association of Cosmetic Nurses. The evidence? From the longer website report: Jackie Partridge of the British Association of Cosmetic Nurses said: “Colleagues across the rest of the world are shocked and in disbelief … Continue reading Beauty treatment – BBC ecstatic to report ‘Scotland worst in Europe’ again as Fife woman dies in Türkiye

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More on MMR immunisation in Scotland – latest research

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By stewartb Let me share some other positive insights on MMR immunisation, this time from a recent peer reviewed research paper: Source: McQuaid F, Mulholland R, Sangpang Rai Y, Agrawal U, Bedford H, Cameron JC, et al. (2022) Uptake of infant and preschool immunisations in Scotland and England during the COVID-19 pandemic: An observational study of routinely collected data. PLoS Med 19(2): e1003916. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1003916 ‘We found that early uptake of infant and preschool immunisations (within 4 weeks of a child becoming eligible) ROSE SIGNIFICANTLY FOR THE DURATION OF THE FIRST LOCKDOWN PERIOD IN SCOTLAND, RESULTING IN THOUSANDS MORE CHILDREN RECEIVING THEIR … Continue reading More on MMR immunisation in Scotland – latest research

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Misleading the public on hospital operations in Scotland for cheap political gain

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In the Herald’s health newsletter and big on their website, today: It is fairly obvious that clearing the elective waiting list backlog depends on ramping up the number of patients getting into theatre for surgery. Yet the results of a new workforce survey, published today, highlight that a lack of available theatre spaces is (alongside stress and burnout) the number one gripe for the nation’s surgeons. Indeed, the most recent available data for Scotland illustrates just how much patient turnover continues to lag behind pre-pandemic levels. As of November 2023, a total of 25,922 operations were scheduled for theatre in … Continue reading Misleading the public on hospital operations in Scotland for cheap political gain