BBC Scotland keeping away from this kind of NHS story
This worrying report is all over BBC 1 ‘National’ News and the UK website but absent from any Scottish reports. Maybe the Scotsman will try to post it as if it is about Scotland and just hope we don’t read on past the headline?
From the Department for Health & Social Care (the Department), NHS England and NHS Improvement, yesterday:
‘Between July and September 2018, only 78.6% of patients were treated within 62 days of an urgent referral, down from 83.8% between September and December 2014 when we last reported on it.7 NHS England assured us that additional investment will be available to help improve its performance against cancer waiting times as part of the NHS Long Term Plan. However, NHS England could not give a commitment as to when the cancer waiting times standard will be achieved again.’
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmpubacc/1750/175006.htm#_idTextAnchor005
From NHS Scotland ISD in March 2019:
82.7% of patients started treatment within the 62-day standard, an increase from 81.4% in the previous quarter.
Perhaps more worrying is the dramatic variation in performance between boards in England’s more affluent and less affluent areas. Greater Glasgow’s performance under great pressure in demand, of 77.4%, or Western Isles, 75%, challenged by its remoteness, seem quite positive in the light of these:
The worst waits (% of patients started treatment in 62 days during 2018-19)
- Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells 60.8%
- Royal Wolverhampton 62.8%
- Weston Area Health 67%
- Southend University Hospital 67%
- Bradford Hospitals 67.1%
- University College London Hospitals 68.4%
- Mid Essex Hospitals Services 68.5%
- Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals 69.2%
- East and North Hertfordshire 69.2%
- East Kent Hospitals 70.7%
- https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-48600926
How many more are there not listed, in the gap between these and 75%?
Talking-up Scotland 
Thank’s for the alert on what is yet another poor quality online article from the BBC. I’ve just looked at the IDS Scotland report referred to in the above post. My reading of this is that the target in Scotland is for 95% of patients to be treated within the 62 days, and NOT the 85% as the BBC article reports for England. Therefore based on latest performance data, five Health Boards in Scotland have bettered the 85% performance level set for NHS England.
The BBC article completely fails to represent properly the comparative situation in Scotland. But then we are used to this by now!
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To be fair the BBC article was almost wholly about NHS England. Only at the very end did it mention NHS Scotland, Wales and NI. It did say that NHS Scotland had not yet published its annual report – omitting that there are quarterly reports. It also went on to say that 13 of the 14 Health Boards in Scotland had missed the target but omitted to mention what that target was and, in addition, while missing the Scottish target a good number had hit or passed the target of 85% which is the target set for NHS England.
So once more the BBC reports in such a way that people are kept in the dark about what is actually happening throughout the UK and within their own part of the UK.
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Sorry nothing to do with cancer (at least directly) but the linked article is interesting:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/13/tree-planting-in-england-falls-72-short-of-government-target
The English planting target was only 5000 hectares and they only achieved 1420 hectares compared to the Scottish achievement of 11200 hectares (no mention of the target in Scotland). Another case of Scotland doing its best to drag the UK figures up to a respectable level despite the failure of England to pull its weight… Can’t think where else this is also true…
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Sorry nothing to do with cancer (at least directly) but the linked article is interesting:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/13/tree-planting-in-england-falls-72-short-of-government-target
The English planting target was only 5000 hectares and they only achieved 1420 hectares compared to the Scottish achievement of 11200 hectares (no mention of the target in Scotland). Another case of Scotland doing its best to drag the UK figures up to a respectable level despite the failure of England to pull its weight… Can’t think where else this is also true…
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Apologies for double posting – something to do with my signing-in procedure…
Anyway spotted this the BBC website (I know, sorry!). https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-48629939
It appears that the Scottish Government met its tree-planting target… unlike the other nation to our south!
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One of the tools to be used by the UK government to ameliorate climate change in England, is —-tree planting.
Or is it in England?
Perhaps they will use the stats for Scotland, to BIG up their climate change achievements.
They already seem to have done it with wind power generation, which was mocked and sneered at by Tories north and south.
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O/T
I’m sure like many who value this site, I am sick of the BBC misreporting public policy issues across the UK, especially misreporting distinctions between England and rUK matters.
I am driven to complain formally from time to time to the BBC without much satisfaction. But unusually I’ve just had an admission of error in reporting on the BBC News website. I copy the relevant response just received from the BBC below for info and interest.
Of course the damage has been done: the opportunity to inform BBC users of the relative successes of policy in Wales and Scotland regarding social mobility has been lost. The BBC’s admission now to me, candidly, has little real impact. However, I will continue to be – at least – an irritant!
I draw your attention to the BBC’s ‘excuse’ in the second last paragraph of the response: “.. the original piece, which we should point out, was commissioned with a very quick turnaround, for a 170-page report.” In what other profession involving the interpretation and onward public communication of research findings is this a valid excuse?
“Dear XXXX,
Ref: CAS-5425886-G4DTDM
Thank you for getting in touch with your comments about the quality of the headline and reporting in our coverage of the State of the Nation report published by the Social Mobility Commission, at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48103017 .
Firstly, we apologise for the delay in responding.
On review we have examined both the issues you raise and updated the piece.
We agree that the headline was misleading by referring to changes in social mobility in the UK, while the report referred to Great Britain, although many of the graphs and figures cited in the report did include United Kingdom-wide studies.
The headline has been updated to reflect the proper ambit of the report and the second paragraph makes it clear that the State of the Nation report covers England, Scotland and Wales.
On your second point, we agree it was an oversight not to include reference to contrasting findings for Scotland and Wales, compared to England.
This has been remedied by reflecting on the report’s finding that Scotland and Wales were becoming more socially mobile, with a person’s socio-economic status less likely to be determined by their parents’ socio-economic status than in 2014.
We have added that this was in contrast to the limited social mobility found in Britain as a whole.
We regret the oversight of not including this valid idea in the original piece, which we should point out, was commissioned with a very quick turnaround, for a 170-page report.
We appreciate the time you have taken to make your points and have reflected on your reaction to the piece.
Best wishes,
C Stuart
BBC News website”
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Thanks for sharing this all too typical response.
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Hi John et al – A further piece of very welcome news regarding treatment for prostate cancer in Scotland from news.gov.scot website. Link and snippets below:
https://news.gov.scot/news/better-treatment-for-prostate-cancer
A new service will be introduced to improve the detection of advanced prostate cancer in Scotland.
Gallium scanning technology will be funded by NHS Scotland, and provided at four centres across the country. The technique allows for more accurate diagnosis of possible prostate cancer relapse, where cancers spread after initial treatment. It allows clinicians to identify exactly where any follow-up tumours are located, allowing for appropriate treatment.
The scanning will be located in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, NHS Tayside, NHS Lothian and NHS Grampian. Initial investment of £2 million will be made and contracts have been awarded to allow the procurement of the equipment required.
The service is expected to be operational around spring 2020.
Dr Roger Staff, PET/CT lead for the Scottish Clinical Imaging Network, said: “The introduction of this service represents a marked service development that will significantly improve the management of prostate and neuroendocrine cancer in Scotland. This is not only a ‘game changer’ for patients with prostate cancer, but the installation of the infrastructure required will future-proof centres and allow new techniques to be introduced faster.”
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