Based on a fuller report in the Independent, this former Scottish Newspaper allows Labour to pretend that children’s operations are being cancelled in record numbers across the UK including Scotland. The Independent gives the same impression:
The Independent, unable to remember that NHS should read NHS England, begins:
‘There has been a 58 per cent rise in the number of children’s operations cancelled by the NHS in the past seven years, according to figures which critics warn illustrate the “cruel toll” of pressures on the health service. Last year, a record 18,647 under-18s had surgery cancelled or delayed, with cancer treatment, pregnancy terminations and broken bones among the procedures affected. That compares with 11,821 cancellations since the Conservatives came to power in coalition with the Liberal democrats in 2011/2012, and the number has climbed steadily in a period where austerity policies have seen budgets fall behind rising demand.’
In a long piece, we hear tales of several boards and trust, across England. No Scottish examples are used. Could that be because cancelled operations for all age groups have been falling for some time in Scotland?
Try searching for cancelled operation in NHS Scotland, for children or for adults, and you’ll hear the brushwood tumble past. If there was such a phenomenon in Scotland, we’d hear all about it. Our Loyalist List MSPs would be all over the story and not having to rely on hoping we think a story about NHS England applies here.
Talking-up Scotland 
This ‘blurring’ of data in areas such as the NHS and education, which have always been devolved, is a common tactic used by Nomedia. Since most people say ‘NHS’ rather than NHS Scotland, NHS England, NHS Wales or the appropriate term for Northern Ireland (which I shamefully have forgotten), then, unless people are aware of the distinction, the adverse message can be registered subconsciously.
This is why rapid rebuttals from yourself and other sites are so useful, and it is important that the rest of us, in our social interactions correct people making such assertions based on what they had read.
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Thanks for embedding the use of Nomedia. Often forget myself. Re NI, is is NHSNI? Sounds like a no to me.
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It is called HSC – Health and Social Care.
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