Tag: nhs

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What on earth is this rubbish doing in the National implying Scotland’s maternity services need an Ockenden Inquiry?

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The above is outrageous. There is no evidence presented by the writer to suggest she is in any position to predict what the outcome of the Scottish Government’s independent review of maternity services in Scotland will be. How dare she and they claim to know without waiting to hear the results? She opens with: Over the past few years, Britain has commissioned report after report into failures in maternity care. Shrewsbury and Telford. East Kent. Morecambe Bay. Nottingham. Most recently, the national investigation led by Baroness Valerie Amos. https://www.thenational.scot/comment/26261264.maternity-services-need-culture-change/ There is no British NHS to commission a report into maternity … Continue reading What on earth is this rubbish doing in the National implying Scotland’s maternity services need an Ockenden Inquiry?

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For the fiftieth time SNP government works respectfully with a health union to avert strike action and loss of life ‘setting it apart’ from other UK nations

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There isn’t a precise record of this but I make it, conservatively, around 50 distinct strike actions and more than 100 days lost over the last 5 years, in NHS England and, in NHS Scotland, none, zero. What is the situation with consultants in Scotland? BMA Scotland has been in discussions/negotiations with the government. A recent pay offer for consultants is now being put to members in a consultative vote (not a formal strike ballot). https://www.bma.org.uk/our-campaigns/consultant-campaigns Earlier in 2026, BMA Scotland launched a pay survey and warned that failing to improve on the independent pay review body (DDRB) recommendation could … Continue reading For the fiftieth time SNP government works respectfully with a health union to avert strike action and loss of life ‘setting it apart’ from other UK nations

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Students in England ‘mis-sold’ loans as Nurse students there owe £77k and those in Scotland get a £10k bursary – what effect might that have on training numbers?

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BBC UK today has: Comparing student loan repayments to phone contracts or cinema tickets “amounted to mis-selling” by government, a group of MPs has said. In a new report, the Treasury Committee also said students were not told clearly enough loan terms could change retrospectively, and called for a U-turn on the decision to freeze the income threshold at which some graduates start repaying their loans. The student loan saga has run for years in England but rarely surfaces in Scotland. Here’s why: Let’s take the situation in nurse education. The Guardian in January 2026 had: Helen Lambert borrowed £57,000 … Continue reading Students in England ‘mis-sold’ loans as Nurse students there owe £77k and those in Scotland get a £10k bursary – what effect might that have on training numbers?

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Patient sexually assaulted and killed in her bed, six staff jailed including surgeon for sexually assaulting five colleagues and a culture of systemic bullying and harassment in Blackpool hospital but neither health secretary nor government blamed and BBC ignore it – imagine that had been in Inverness?

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You could be forgiven for thinking that NHS England’s worries were confined to maternity services and to NHS Nottingham with its criminal police investigation labelled perversely ‘Operation Perth.’ After decades of centre-right, cost-cutting, government and unprotected by a centre-left SNP government, protecting public services from the worst of austerity politics, all public services in England are struggling badly and to a greater extent than, as TuS reveals on a daily basis, their equivalents in Scotland. The above claim can be checked by searching here: Just type in ‘NHS’ or ‘waiting’ or ‘crime’ or…………… On 4 December 2025, we reported an … Continue reading Patient sexually assaulted and killed in her bed, six staff jailed including surgeon for sexually assaulting five colleagues and a culture of systemic bullying and harassment in Blackpool hospital but neither health secretary nor government blamed and BBC ignore it – imagine that had been in Inverness?

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NHS Scotland’s greater spending, some independence, better staffing and care integration will offset some of the 20 000 avoidable deaths Starmer offers us in his US deal

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In the Guardian today: The NHS will have to divert £45bn from essential services to pay for new medicines under the terms of the UK-US trade deal agreed last December, leading to more than 200,000 avoidable deaths [229 000] of patients, analysis has found. Ministers have defended the deal as a way of helping British drug exports to the US avoid tariffs, and giving patients in England access to potentially life-extending drugs that would otherwise be denied. But they have been accused of caving in to US demands to spend billions of pounds a year extra on drugs supplied to the NHS … Continue reading NHS Scotland’s greater spending, some independence, better staffing and care integration will offset some of the 20 000 avoidable deaths Starmer offers us in his US deal

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NHS Scotland to be hammered for hundreds of millions in US drug deal Scotland had no say in

johnrobertson834

In the Guardian today something we, well stewartb, warned was coming. The NHS across the UK will have to divert £45bn from essential services to pay for the trade ‘deal’ the UK Labour Government has just done with big pharma in the US. Scotland’s share, unavoidably as the deal is done by the UK Government alone, will cost NHS Scotland around 8% of that or £360 million. In April 2026, stewartb, warned this was coming and NHS Scotland would just have to meet the cost from its finite budget unless the UK Government did something. stewartb Seems like another example … Continue reading NHS Scotland to be hammered for hundreds of millions in US drug deal Scotland had no say in

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NHS Scotland cancer treatment facing massive increase in referrals since pandemic yet performing better than then and saving thousands who would have been delayed in NHS England

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From Cancer waiting times 1 January to 31 March 2026 published today: There were 4,668 eligible referrals where the 62-day standard applied, a decrease of 2.7% from the previous quarter, but an increase of 25.4% from the quarter ending 31 December 2019, the last full quarter pre‑pandemic. 72.2% of patients started treatment within 62 days, compared with 72.6% in the previous quarter. There were 7,225 eligible referrals where the 31-day standard applied, a decrease of 2.0% from the previous quarter, but an increase of 13.1% from the quarter ending 31 December 2019. 94.5% of patients started treatment within 31 days, … Continue reading NHS Scotland cancer treatment facing massive increase in referrals since pandemic yet performing better than then and saving thousands who would have been delayed in NHS England

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England’s first full investigation into maternity service failures publishing today will reveal such horror that their police investigation being labelled ‘Operation Perth’ shocks investigation-free NHS Scotland

johnrobertson834

Absent entirely from UK newspaper front pages today but featured in TV news broadcasts, the above story anticipates a report into maternity services in Nottingham which will be frankly horrific and which police locally have strangely labelled their investigation into criminality, ‘Operation Perth’: The largest maternity review in the history of the NHS – which is expected to detail widespread failings that led to the deaths of babies and avoidable harm – will be published later. About 2,500 families and more than 800 staff members have contributed to the review into Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH) NHS Trust, which began in … Continue reading England’s first full investigation into maternity service failures publishing today will reveal such horror that their police investigation being labelled ‘Operation Perth’ shocks investigation-free NHS Scotland

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Scotland’s pharmacy scheme ‘the model for England’ may reduce shortages problems

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In the Guardian today: Britons [sic] are facing some of the “most severe” shortages of NHS medicines on record including common painkillers, epilepsy drugs and HRT, health leaders have warned, even forcing some patients with impaired digestive systems to skip meals. The National Pharmacy Association (NPA) has warned that medicine shortages pose a “serious risk to patient safety”. The Royal College of GPs has also raised concerns about the impact medicine shortages have on patients, GPs and pharmacists. Source: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jun/18/nhs-patients-face-worst-drug-shortages-on-record-say-pharmacists-and-gps BBC Breakfast 29 May 2026 told us the Scottish Government has long put in place a better model for pharmacies, repeatedly covered here but never in the … Continue reading Scotland’s pharmacy scheme ‘the model for England’ may reduce shortages problems

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Research by Royal College finds TWICE as many over 60s, per head of population, waiting more than 12 hours in NHS England’s A&E departments as in NHS Scotland – a political responsibility that can no longer be ignored there

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In the Guardian today: More than 1,300 patients a month in England are dying needlessly due to long A&E waits, a tenfold rise in a decade, figures suggest. There were more than 300 deaths linked to long waits every week in 2025, up from 30 a week in 2015, according to analysis by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine. The RCEM’s president, Dr Ian Higginson, said he wondered how many more deaths it would take before there was a meaningful plan to tackle the crisis. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/jun/08/more-than-1300-deaths-a-month-in-england-due-to-long-ae-waits-figures-suggest As far as I can see the RCEM in Scotland have not persuaded the media here … Continue reading Research by Royal College finds TWICE as many over 60s, per head of population, waiting more than 12 hours in NHS England’s A&E departments as in NHS Scotland – a political responsibility that can no longer be ignored there