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Under Labour, NHS Wales put responsibility on A&E patients to ‘choose most appropriate place’ and BBC Wales ignore it

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By Professor John Robertson Thanks to AR for alerting me to this. From Wales Online yesterday but absent from BBC Wales reporting despite the drama and the relevance for their audience: Welsh health board issues ‘red alert’ over A&E pressures. Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board has issued a red alert as their emergency departments are currently under “extreme pressure”. The warning from the North Wales board makes clear that there are “extremely” long delays at A&E. People are being encouraged to choose the “most suitable place to access care”. Currently, waits of up to 10 hours are being reported at … Continue reading Under Labour, NHS Wales put responsibility on A&E patients to ‘choose most appropriate place’ and BBC Wales ignore it

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Factcheck- 418 900 fewer staff in NHS England, ‘leading to patient deaths’, than if it were run by SNP Government!

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By Professor John Robertson In the Observer today, the above, and: Hospitals are being forced to cut medical staff, threatening their ability to care for patients, senior health leaders have warned. NHS trusts are reporting budget deficits after the chancellor Jeremy Hunt gave England’s health service £2.5bn extra funding, which only covers inflation and pay increases. The UK’s ageing population and the impact of having more than 6 million patients waiting for more than 7.5m treatments means that demand on the health service has increased substantially. https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/may/05/cuts-will-result-in-patient-deaths-hospitals-shed-medical-staff-after-being-told-to-balance-the-books Further staffing cuts in NHS England staffing will exacerbate an already worrying level of staffing. … Continue reading Factcheck- 418 900 fewer staff in NHS England, ‘leading to patient deaths’, than if it were run by SNP Government!

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You’re almost TWICE as likely to be on a waiting list for cardiac care in England than you are in Scotland

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By Professor John Robertson From the Guardian today, we see that 408 548 are waiting for cardiac care in England. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/apr/11/number-waiting-for-nhs-care-for-serious-heart-problems-in-england-rises-fivefold You know the drill. With one-tenth of the population, all things being as equally bad as our media would hope, Scotland might expect to have around 40 000 on the waiting list for cardiac care but according to the Herald on 6 February 2024, it’s 23 000, just over half. https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/24091977.cardiology-waiting-lists-at-highest-level-record Is it just this or is there a wider picture of NHS Scotland waiting lists being shorter after 16 years of the SNP in Government? Search: https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/?s=wait to … Continue reading You’re almost TWICE as likely to be on a waiting list for cardiac care in England than you are in Scotland

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National Parks England & Wales on Raptor protection – ‘The Westminster and Welsh Governments should follow Scotland’s lead’

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By Professor John Robertson Big in the Guardian today, completely ignored in other MSM, the above from https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/09/national-parks-in-england-and-wales-failing-on-biodiversity-say-campaigners has nothing to say about Scotland. Why should it? This on page 77: In response to ongoing raptor persecution, the Scottish Government introduced vicarious liability offences in District National Park. The birdwatcher had spotted a short-eared owl and watched it through his scope as it gracefully quartered the moor. Suddenly, the bird’s body was lost in a cloud of feathers as a shot rang out across the moors. The eyewitness managed to record footage of the suspect and reported the incident to … Continue reading National Parks England & Wales on Raptor protection – ‘The Westminster and Welsh Governments should follow Scotland’s lead’

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Under Labour, NHS Wales has a waiting list 36% longer than England and 150% longer than Scotland

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By Professor John Robertson As the Guardian reports today a surge in waiting times in England, after a year of strikes, I thought I’d have a look at NHS Wales, led by the Labour Party, to see if that might offer us hope for better performance as the they take over in England next year. England has 18 times the population of Wales. Scotland has 1.7 times the population of Wales. According to the BMJ in March 2023, there were 734 000 on the NHS Wales waiting lists (presumably more now). https://www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/nhs-delivery-and-workforce/pressures/nhs-under-pressure-wales#:~:text=Waiting%20lists%20remain%20high&text=In%20March%202023%2C%20there%20were,it%20was%20in%20March%202020. All things being equal, you’d then expect England … Continue reading Under Labour, NHS Wales has a waiting list 36% longer than England and 150% longer than Scotland

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Hospital waiting time lists in England 12 times longer than in Scotland!

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The Scotsman and the Mail are making much of a Royal Colleges report into waiting time lists for under-18s being more than 100% longer, more than twice as long. I can’t find directly comparable data for England but I can find it for all age groups and it’s large hard-boiled sweet-stopping. From NHS England Consultant-led Referral to Treatment Waiting Times Data for all age groups: In October 2012, 156 461 waited longer than 18 weeks. In September 2023, 3 222 357 waited longer than 18 weeks, 21 times as long. From Public Health Scotland 18 weeks referral to Treatment (RTT) … Continue reading Hospital waiting time lists in England 12 times longer than in Scotland!

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Why does only Scotland need to hear of national grid problems it does not actually have?

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Included in Reporting Scotland’s very short insert in BBC Breakfast and the main story on the BBC Scotland website (below), ‘The National Grid’ and its need for massive investment to make sure it can provide the flow of electricity to ‘homes and businesses’, makes no mention of the key fact that Scotland does not ‘need’ this at all; the rest of the UK does. Scotland is currently transferring 1.69TWh of electricity per month to England, more than 20TWh in 2023 and on some days (above graph) pushing 30TWh. https://news.duke-energy.com/releases/duke-energy-customers-surpass-1-terawatt-of-energy-savings-through-my-home-energy-report-program 1TWh would sell globally for about $120 000 per hour, so … Continue reading Why does only Scotland need to hear of national grid problems it does not actually have?

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The comedy time lag on Scotland’s violent past

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Talking-up Scotland costs nothing so donate to our friends at  https://www.broadcastingscotland.scot/donate/ or take out a subscription to the Scots Independent newspaper in which I have a column, at: https://scotsindependent.scot/FWShop/product-category/subscriptions/ Here’s an English comedian recently working the hard Scots stereotype. Comedians, Scottish ones too, have lived of this trope for decades. As recently as 2005, not quite 20 years ago, it was based on a degree of reality: In 2005, a United Nations report named Scotland as the most violent country in the developed world. You were 3x more likely to be a victim of assault in Glasgow than you were in America. Glasgow … Continue reading The comedy time lag on Scotland’s violent past

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NHS Scotland – the best performing A&E service measured by waiting times of any in the UK

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Talking-up Scotland costs nothing so donate to our friends at  https://www.broadcastingscotland.scot/donate/ or take out a subscription to the Scots Independent newspaper in which I have a column, at: https://scotsindependent.scot/FWShop/product-category/subscriptions/ By stewartb The Royal College of Emergency Medicine’s (RCEM) website has a section entitled ‘Devolved Performance Figures’ where it provides comparable A&E waiting times data for the NHS in the four UK nations. Presently these enables direct comparisons for the month of January 2024. Under a Tory government with all the powers of a nation-state: NHS England: ‘In January 2024, 177,805 patients waited 12 hours or more from their time of arrival. The MOST AMOUNT … Continue reading NHS Scotland – the best performing A&E service measured by waiting times of any in the UK

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Reported domestic abuse in England & Wales climbing steadily to THREE times the rate in Scotland where it is also falling steadily

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Talking-up Scotland costs nothing so donate to our friends at  https://www.broadcastingscotland.scot/donate/ or take out a subscription to the Scots Independent newspaper in which I have a column, at: https://scotsindependent.scot/FWShop/product-category/subscriptions/ BBC Reporting Scotland today is headlining the stories of 7 abused women whose cases, often several years old, have again become ‘the news‘ as they form the basis for another of their Disclosure series. Once more there is no context. Have these crimes become more or less common? Are they more common in Scotland than elsewhere? These are questions we’d get the answers to if they were about drug deaths or any rare phenomenon … Continue reading Reported domestic abuse in England & Wales climbing steadily to THREE times the rate in Scotland where it is also falling steadily