Last year, by this time, the State Broadcaster’s Reporting Scotland team had predicted a winter crisis for NHS Scotland. None came to pass. There is no definitive evidence that some reporters and presenters prayed for increased injuries that year.
Renowned media analyst and visiting research fellow at the Vidkun Quisling Centre for Critical Collaboration Studies, in Oslo, Professor John Robertson, has challenged the State Broadcaster’s team to come with up a campaign of misinformation designed to suggest a crisis in NHS Scotland this winter.
The evidence for a crisis in NHS England is already apparent and the State Broadcaster’s team in England has already launched its campaign:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-46514094
Though BBC 1 News at 1.30pm yesterday misled by suggesting 87.6% of A&E patients were seen within 4 hours, the number seen in the Type 1 departments, those actually comparable to Scottish departments, saw only 81.1% in that time. This is a regular ‘mistake’.
In November 2018, the average for Scottish A&E departments was 90.15% seen within 4 hours.
https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Emergency-Care/Publications/index.asp#2317
Further, NHS bed occupancy has entered a critical situation early:
‘Hospitals in England are so overcrowded ahead of Christmas care is being put at risk, experts say, with some places having to turn away ambulances because they cannot accept any more patients. NHS England’s first weekly report of the winter shows nearly 95% of beds are occupied. Anything above 85% is unsafe.’
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-46514094
There is no sign of a comparable crisis regarding bed occupancy in Scotland. The more advanced social care arrangements in Scotland may be preventing this from happening. If there was a crisis, we’d know all about it. Indeed, there is evidence, at this stage of NHS Scotland having enough beds to subsidise NHS England capacity problems. See:
NHS Scotland compensating for serious bed shortages in England
Should a genuine crisis emerge in NHS Scotland, comparable to that in England, Professor Robertson, following Scotsman guidance, will make a small apology at the bottom of page 14 of the print edition of TuS.
Talking-up Scotland 
I remember last year’s ‘crisis’ well! I had to go to the A&E at Glasgow Royal Infirmary on a Saturday evening in December, 2018, because I had sliced off the tip of a finger, with one of the new kitchen knives my wife had bought me, and could not get the bleeding to stop. I was in and out in just under three hours, most of which time was spent waiting after I had been treated to ensure that the bleeding had in fact stopped.
Being old enough to remember the ‘Casualty’ at the Royal back in the 1960s, when gang fights and severe bevvying were the norm, I was pleasantly surprised by how calm the whole place was. There were several drunks in being treated, but, it was all pretty calm, civilised and a sense of purpose reigned. The only police officers I saw were two who had brought in a man who had been assaulted in Duke St. They were sitting blethering to him and to others waiting for treatment.
The following day, I read a vox pop on the BBC website about the ‘crisis’ in which someone told of the ‘horror’ of the A&E at the Royal on the Saturday evening when I had been in, ‘as worse than anything he/she had ever seen on news reports about Syria and Yemen’.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I remember your finger tip well.
LikeLike
It has grew back!
LikeLike
The date in line 1 should be 2017.
LikeLike
near enough for me
LikeLike