Talking-up Scotland

Image: www.designingbuildings.co.uk

‘Important elements of the welfare system are being devolved to Scotland…. However, the devolution of welfare powers should not obscure the continuing role of that Westminster plays in determining benefit spending in Scotland. In this report we have estimated that the post-2015 welfare reforms will result in a financial loss to claimants in Scotland of just over £1bn a year by 2020-21. This comes on top of an earlier financial loss of £1.1bn a year by March 2016 arising from the welfare reforms implemented by the Westminster Government between 2010 and 2015. Even the devolved benefits do not escape unscathed: by the time that responsibility for Personal Independence Payments is devolved in 2018, we estimate that a further £190m a year will have been taken from claimants in Scotland as a result of the on-going replacement of DLA by PIP. As a result, a smaller budget line will eventually be handed over. Welfare claimants in Scotland have lost large sums already, and are set to lose further large sums. The devolution of welfare powers will not in itself alter this stark reality.’

This is from the conclusions of: THE IMPACT ON SCOTLAND OF THE NEW WELFARE REFORMS by Christina Beatty and Steve Fothergill, Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research, Sheffield Hallam University October 2016 at:

http://www.parliament.scot/S5_Social_Security/General%20Documents/Sheffield-Hallam_FINAL_version_07.10.16.pdf

Somehow, Repulsing Scotland’s Douglas Fraser missed this recent report in his extended but infantile review of inequality in Scotland. I won’t repeat my evaluation here. It’s at:

https://thoughtcontrolscotland.com/2016/11/14/welcome-to-bbc-reporting-scotlands-special-week-on-inequality-these-notes-may-save-your-life/

and:

https://thoughtcontrolscotland.com/2016/11/14/stv-news-exposes-bbc-reporting-scotlands-lack-of-real-news-coverage-on-inequality/

The report was commissioned by the Scottish Government and undertaken by Sheffield Hallam University so it’s probably biased, eh? I won’t repeat the detail here. The above quote makes the main point that no matter how hard the Scottish Government tries to protect the weak, there are limits to what they can do because of the overwhelming power differential between them and the Tory regime in London. They have made some notable contributions in, for example, the funds given to local councils to offset the effects of the ‘Bedroom Tax’ but again they have had little credit for that from the Unionist parties or from their media department at BBC Scotland. Perhaps most nauseating, after repeatedly showing us Kezia’s hypocritical whining like that woman in the Simpsons, has been their protection of Tory leader Ruth Davidson from association with the brutal reforms of her bosses in London. More on BBC Scotland’s shameless concealment of Davidson’s complicity can be found at:

https://thoughtcontrolscotland.com/2016/09/29/bbc-scotlands-still-ruth-less-approach-to-the-news-what-do-they-need-to-do-to-get-bad-press/

and:

http://indyref2.scot/protecting-ruth

As with Brexit and Trident renewal, the logic on poverty and inequality points only one way, to full independence.

 

https://grousebeater.wordpress.com/2016/04/19/the-snps-achievements/comment-page-1/#comment-3821

https://grousebeater.wordpress.com/2016/04/19/the-snps-achievements/comment-page-1/#comment-3821

Image: theguardian

Once more, STV reported the news for adults while BBC Scotland concentrated on inequalities in education using evidence and policy-free stories from Douglas Fraser, some encouraging opinions from some nice kids in North Ayrshire and some bleeding obvious statements from a professor of teacher-training. Ironically, according to Jackie bird, Douglas had ‘done his homework’ on this one. Was that a joke, maybe? Oh, education, I get it. Nice one Jackie!

Both opened with the gangland murder but STV went on quickly to cover Prime Minister’s Questions with a clearly rattled PM reduced to ‘nah, nah, nah’ rather than answering any questions.

From STV, we heard Angus Robertson of the SNP say:

‘The Institute for Government which has close ties to the civil service has published a report. It says the UK Government has an approach toward Brexit which is and I quote, ‘chaotic and dysfunctional, that Brexit poses an existential threat to operations in Whitehall departments, that the Prime Minister has a secretive approach toward Brexit and that the present situation is unsustainable.’

I suppose using words like ‘existential’ shows that STV and BBC Scotland differ in their assessment of their audience’s intelligence. You’d think STV would have alerted BBC Scotland to the abovementioned report. It seems important. They’ll be gutted about missing it because it is their mission to inform, isn’t it? After the PM’s response we heard from the reporter:

‘That drew an angry response from the SNP who said that Unionist parties argued for a ‘No vote’ on the Independence Referendum as the only way of keeping Scotland in Europe.’

Altogether, with additional explanation from the reporter, this was the kind of thing you might expect on a ‘News’ programme. As on Monday, STV keep mentioning the SNP and letting SNP politicians speak. Watching BBC Scotland this week you’d think it was still 1997 and SNP government was only a crazy dream.

BBC Scotland missed the whole thing. Don’t they know about Prime Minister’s Questions? Have they just given up on a ‘Scottish 6’ and are they now bidding for a morning slot on BBC2 with target audiences in schools and old folk’s homes?

Remember, BBC Reporting Scotland is currently attempting to make up for last semester’s failed assessment. Here’s how the Guardian reported it in May 2016:

‘Has Scotland fallen out of love with the BBC? Its views have now been officially measured in a UK-wide study, and the answer appears to be yes: Scottish audiences have a problem – a bigger problem than any other part of the UK. In a study published by the UK government alongside last week’s white paper on the BBC’s future, based on two mass surveys of around 2100 people, it found Scotland’s viewers were consistently the most critical and least supportive of any demographic group, whether by place of residence, age, or social group.’

In the full report, below, there are 52 (52!) references to BBC Scotland doing less well than the other regions. It was a catastrophic failure. Watching Reporting Scotland this week, it looks like they have learned nothing.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/522509/Research_to_explore_public_views_about_the_BBC.pdf

 

 

Afghan women university in the 1960s http://iolanche.com/airblast/women-get-vote-in-afghanistan/

Donald Trump is a disgraceful, sexist, racist and a homophobe and other things but he’s not an ideological version of these things. He’s a callous, lazy, casual, old-fashioned, inconsistent version. Unlike a few fundamentalist religious groups, Muslim, Christian and Jewish, he doesn’t want all women denied higher education, the right to vote, the right to drive, the right to careers, the right to choose partners or the right of their parents to carry out ‘honour-killings’. The current theocratic regimes in countries like Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya do. There are no fundamentalist Christian or Jewish regimes so oppression of women by groups is limited. The Jewish Belz sect in North London did try recently to ban women from driving and there have been one or two ‘honour killings’ by Christians in the UK.

In contemporary Egypt, in the remains of Assad’s Syria and in the Kurdish regions women do have most of these rights. In Kurdish areas, they even fight in the frontline against ISIS. In Hussein’s Iraq before the US-led invasion in 2003, in Gaddafi’s Libya before attacks by the UK and France triggered a civil war in 2011 and in Afghanistan before the US-backed Taliban takeover in 1996, they were the most emancipated women and had the highest material living standards at the time in the Middle-East. See this:

‘Contrary to popular imagination, Iraqi women enjoyed far more freedom under Saddam Hussein’s secular Ba’athist government than women in other Middle Eastern countries. In fact, equal rights for women were enshrined in Iraq’s Constitution in 1970, including the right to vote, run for political office, access education and own property. Today, these rights are all but absent under the U.S.-backed government of Nouri al-Maliki.’

http://muftah.org/was-life-for-iraqi-women-better-under-saddam/#.WCxE8tWLTm4

What’s this got to do with Trump? I’m not saying all this will definitely happen with certainty but the possibility is there in what he has already said. See these from the FT, Huff Post and the Guardian:

‘Russia strikes Syria hours after Putin-Trump call. The Trump camp did not say whether the two leaders had discussed Syria on the Monday evening telephone call, but the Kremlin said they agreed on the need for joint efforts to fight terrorism and discussed the possibility of a settlement to the five-year Syrian conflict.’

‘President-Elect Trump: End U.S. Support for Saudi Arabia’s Barbaric War against Yemen’

‘The Donald Trump doctrine: ‘Assad is bad’ but US must stop ‘nation-building’

I know he’s inconsistent. I know that some within the deep establishment will pressure him to retain the cold war with Russia and old ties with Saudi Arabia but, unlike with Clinton, there is here a reasonable chance of change. Some of those in the Pentagon, in the CIA, in the FBI and elsewhere in the administration, will be younger more recently educated, less Russo-phobic and far less sympathetic or beholden to Saudi Arabia.

Trump has indicated strongly that he wants to talk to Putin and to negotiate an end to the war in Syria even if it means Assad stays in power, perhaps reduced power over parts of the country. Remember Clinton and her predecessors are financial beneficiaries and close allies of the abovementioned structurally misogynistic regime in Saudi Arabia which is also funding and supplying advanced US weapons to ISIS, al Qaeda and other Islamist groups. Trump, though part of other elite groupings, I know, is not part of that elite group and has no loyalty to them. If he does a deal with Putin and Assad while pulling support from the Islamist groups, the civil war will end soon. All women in Syria will benefit from an end to war and not just those seeking careers. The Clinton regime would have prolonged the suffering in an effort not to lose face by failing to remove Assad.

I know, he’s a dirty rotten scoundrel but she was a serious risk to world peace. I’m sorry she was a woman but it’s not my fault.

‘The First Minister announces £13 million for councils to help combat inequality.’ (STV, 14.11.16 at 6pm)

‘We see division and unfairness all around.’ (Theresa May on BBC Scotland, 14.11.16 at 6.30pm)

STV goes on to repeat the headline telling us that there has been a Scottish Government announcement, that addressing inequality is a ‘key priority for the Scottish Government’ and that there has been a new report from Heriot-Watt University on the same topic.

BBC Scotland shows us Theresa May saying the above, followed by Nicola Sturgeon and then Donald Trump echoing her implied desire to help the poor. They don’t mention the news of the £13 million at all.

STV then let us hear Professor Glen Bramley of Heriot-Watt University, explain quite explicitly that the UK Government did have agreed poverty targets, even a child poverty act but that legislation had been withdrawn by the UK Government post 2015.

BBC Reporting Scotland, having missed the news, then launch into what looks like a class lesson on inequality aimed at ten year-olds, at best. The graphics, copied from a British Gas advert perhaps, the one with a globe and wee people on it, are lovely and the script is very easy to follow as it tells you how many people are poor and how poor they are. I recommend they offer it to the nearest teacher-training college. It really is very good.

STV then gives Nicola Sturgeon the opportunity to explain again the new announcement, as if they are running a news programme, and Bernard Ponsonby asks:

‘Will the UK Government change its strategy? We will get a clue to that question when the Chancellor, Phillip Hammond, delivers his autumn statement next week.’

What is STV up to? Are they trying to suggest that the SNP is not to blame for inequality in Scotland? Don’t they realise how dangerous it can be to tell people the news? They might vote for independence if they hear too much of that sort of thing.

So, STV mentions the Scottish Government and the First Minister, three times in connection with a new £13 million fund to tackle inequality, and mention the UK Government and the UK Chancellor, four times in connection with failures to tackle inequality. BBC Scotland just tells us about inequality in Scotland as if it just happens to be there.

It’s clear isn’t it? STV is reporting the news honestly even when it favours the SNP-run Scottish Government. BBC Scotland is telling stories that obscure the news. I don’t have to tell you why.

BBC Scotland’s Douglas Fraser then makes a mistake right at the end and sadly reduces his student-teacher grade by saying with regard to inequality:

‘It’s not just about politicians. How much are we willing to sacrifice to get a fairer Scotland?’

I thought we’d covered this in class Douglas. In a representative democracy, politicians make the decisions, so any socio-economic characteristics of a society, such as inequality, are due to the actions of politicians. Politicians can, for example, legislate to tax corporations more effectively, cancel expensive capital projects or tax the super-rich without any necessity for sacrifice by the rest of us. I really hope you haven’t confused the viewers on this key point. I’m going to give you a B for presentation but, I’m afraid, it’s an overall fail for this critical content error.

Images: From imagefully.com and BBC Scotland’s ‘INEQUALITY SPECIAL’

Oh joy, BBC Reporting Scotland has just announced a ‘Special Week’ on inequality in Scotland based on new research from Heriot Watt University. You can put away those HBOS and Netflix box sets for another day. I should wait till it’s all over before offering my criticism but, instead, in a fun way, I’m going to suggest a game where you watch the reports (stop sobbing) and check to see if they mention that:

1. a House of Commons report from December 2015 and its findings show Scotland in a more favourable light than the rest of the UK;
2. inequality in Scotland has long roots in the past failures of the Labour Party;
3. inequality in Scotland has short and long roots in the actions of the Tories.

If they do report some or all of these things, that might encourage people to feel empowered, to vote ‘Yes’ in the next referendum or even just to vote SNP in the next local elections. Do you think they will?  The December 2015 report is: ‘State of the Nation’: Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, presented to House of Commons December 2015. Here are some of its key findings:

‘Scotland, for example, has the smallest number of children living in poverty among the constituent nations of the UK, the lowest prevalence of low pay and far more young people from deprived areas going on to higher education.’ (iv)

The December 2015 report from the UK Government-funded and sponsored, Social Mobility and Child- Poverty Commission, was chaired by Blairite Labour Party grandee, Alan Milburn. When I saw his name I feared the worst but could not have been more wrong in my expectations. The above quote is taken from ‘State of the Nation: Social Mobility and Child Poverty’. Note the correct use of the term ‘higher-education’ rather than the common distortion in recent mainstream Scottish media reporting, suggesting the opposite, by ignoring the role of colleges in providing HE programmes articulated with the universities. The report commends the Scottish government for its efforts and compares these more than favourably with the neglect and the heartless actions of the UK government. However, that we should not gloat or that we must maintain, indeed increase, our efforts, does not mean that we should not be able to note the progress achieved so far. How else can we gauge what remains to be done? How else can we gather the strength to push on? How else can we build the strong sense of collective identity required to confidently grasp the levers of full political independence required to do so?

‘Once housing costs are taken into account, relative poverty ranges from one in five children in Scotland (21 per cent) to nearly twice this (37 per cent) in London’. (113)

That twenty-one percent of Scotland’s children live in poverty is a monstrous blemish on the face of a democracy aspiring to much better. That it is higher everywhere else in the UK and nearly twice as high in our globalised golden capital does not excuse it, I know that. The current Scottish government makes nothing of such a comparison. It simply accepts that it is unacceptable and is doing what it can to remedy the situation.

‘The trends in one of the key drivers of child poverty – employment – are also encouraging:

• The proportion of children in Scotland who live in workless households has decreased rapidly in recent years and is slightly lower than the UK average – only 10.9 per cent of children in Scotland live in workless households compared to 15.8 per cent in 2012 and 11.8 per cent in the UK as a whole;
• More than six out of 10 (62.5 per cent) children in Scotland live in households where all adults are in work, making Scotland the region with the most ‘fully working’ households in the UK – for example, only 54.6 per cent of children in England live in households where all adults are in work;
• Scotland has the second highest parental employment rate of any region of the UK: 83.2 per cent of people with dependent children are in work. This is driven by very high employment of mothers in couples; 79.6 per cent of whom are in work compared to 71.9 per cent in England. However, lone parents in Scotland have a relatively low employment rate – only 62.2 per cent are in work (compared to, for example, 69.8 per cent in the East of England and 69.2 per cent in Wales).’ (169)

Once more, some good news we don’t hear and, usefully, some bad news about single-mothers which should inform future actions, based on evidence? Returning to higher education, this rigorously evidenced report contradicts the MSM distortions:

‘Young people in Scotland – including those from the most disadvantaged areas – are significantly more likely to participate in higher education than people in the rest of the UK. For example, as Table 7.1 shows, far fewer young people in Scotland live in areas with low rates of participation in higher education than elsewhere in the UK.’ (175)

Finally, the report has much to say that is positive about the plans and the actions of the current SNP government. Though chaired by a Labour Party grandee, Milburn, there is a generous and accurate recognition of the achievements of the SNP in Scotland which contrasts markedly with the bitter, twisted or at best, grudging, statements from Labour in Scotland or from our Tory Governor General, which we see faithfully reported on BBC Scotland and in most of our newspapers. Here are a few highlights from the section on education:

‘The Scottish Government has introduced a number of policy initiatives aiming to make a reality of this commitment to improve social mobility in Scotland, including:

1. Plans to increase entitlements to free, high-quality early learning and childcare provision to 30 hours per week during term-time for all three- and four-year-olds and disadvantaged two-year-olds, by 2020;
2. Placing a new statutory duty on local authorities and Scottish Government ministers to take action to narrow the socio-economic educational attainment gap and publish reports on progress through the Education (Scotland) Bill 2015. (179)
3. Developing a new National Improvement Framework for Scottish Education with a key goal of closing the attainment gap, which will introduce national standardised assessment of literacy and numeracy in P1, P4, P7 and S3 – to be implemented nationally from 2017, allowing the performance of the school system for the most disadvantaged children to be tracked and reported on annually;
4. Providing £100 million funding for the Scottish Attainment Challenge over four years, targeted at primary schools in deprived areas of Scotland and aiming to improve children’s literacy, numeracy, health and well-being;
5. Expanding entitlement to the Education Maintenance Allowance, increasing income thresholds by 20 per cent (to £24,421 for those in families with only one child and £26,884 for those with two or more children), extending eligibility to cover part-time study – meaning that 57,000 young people in Scotland (63 per cent more than in 2013–14) will be eligible for support of £30 per week to stay in education post-16 from January 2016;
6. Setting a long-term ambition to equalise the chances of university access between children in the most and least deprived areas in Scotland, and establishing the independent Commission on Widening Access to look at the evidence on widening participation, identify best practice and propose new targets, due to report in Spring 2016. (180)

If you see BBC Reporting Scotland mention any of this, I’ll eat something.

Finally, a very important factor in reducing poverty and inequality is the willingness of the rest of the population to support political moves to do so. Here’s some evidence that we are willing and more so than the English are:

‘An independent Scotland would be able to use a wider set of fiscal levers – taxes and benefits – to address inequality concerns. But would the Scottish electorate support greater progressivity? The 2011 British Social Attitudes Survey provides limited evidence that it might. Scots are more likely than English voters to think the gap between high and low incomes is too large (78% v. 74%); are more likely to support government efforts at redistribution (43% v. 34%); are more likely to say that social benefits are not high enough (6.2% v. 3.6%); and more likely to say that unemployment benefits are too low and cause hardship (22% v. 18%). Page 23

You’ll see the authors grudgingly suggest that the evidence for our greater willingness to support greater ‘progressivity’ is ‘limited’. Is ‘are more likely to support government efforts at redistribution (43% v. 34%) or 9% limited? I don’t agree at all.

 Sources:

 ‘State of the Nation’: Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, presented to House of Commons December 2015 at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/485926/State_of_the_nation_2015__social_mobility_and_child_poverty_in_Great_Britain.pdf

‘Inequality in Scotland: trends, drivers, and implications for the independence debate’ by David Bell and David Eiser, Division of Economics Stirling Management School University of Stirling at: http://www.centreonconstitutionalchange.ac.uk/sites/default/files/papers/inequality-paper-15-nov-final.pdf

 

 

Images: http://budapestbeacon.com/, http://www.pravoslavie.ru/

‘Not a voice has been raised by our political classes about the cleansing of Christian communities in the Middle East’

Responding to the unanimous and pretty excited condemnation of Donald J Trump by all but one (Davidson) of Scotland’s Party leaders, in the Herald today, Kevin McKenna points correctly to their more than disappointing lack of consistency. The above reference is to events which are far more horrific, abhorrent, than anything Trump has even suggested and I certainly haven’t heard any Scottish political leader call them so. Usefully, he points out that Hungary has already built a wall, to keep refugees out. Trump is unlikely to be able to even extend the fence much, to keep out economic migrants. Needless to say, the enthusiasm of all our leaders for links with China, despite its human rights record, yet at the same time, being shocked by Trump’s personal behaviour, beggars belief.

So, for the first time in a very long time I agree with Kevin McKenna. Given the dramatic nature of this event, for me only I know, I shouldn’t be too grudging but…

As always, he has to get a bit in about the rights of parents to indoctrinate their weanbairns in faith-based schools. The rights of the weanbairns themselves, seem to matter little, in this. However, the main weakness in his piece is the omission of the reasons to prefer Trump over Clinton. As Mae West might have said, ‘Choosing between two evils, I always take the one I haven’t tried before.’

I won’t reprise all my reasons for really, really, not wanting Hillary here. You can find them at:

https://thoughtcontrolscotland.com/2016/11/08/why-trump-is-less-bad-far-less-bad-than-clinton-in-as-few-words-as-possible/

https://thoughtcontrolscotland.com/2016/11/07/letter-to-first-minister-sturgeon-re-her-support-for-hillary-clinton/

Images: africaresource.com, youtube.com, http://gayinfluence.blogspot.co.uk/

This is not an attack on the SNP as a whole. I’m in it. I wouldn’t attack me would I?

I’ll come back the SNP leadership. First what is ‘the Left’? What are ‘left-wing’ politics? Some folk seem confused.

Emerging out of organised labour movements in the 19^th and 20^th centuries, ‘left-wing’ politics then meant simply a movement working to reduce economic equalities between owners and their white, male, protestant, working-class employees and, in so doing,  improve the general living conditions of the masses. Slowly, over time, left-wing politics came to embrace the emancipation and equality for women, for other religious groups, for other ethnicities and, disgracefully late I know, for LGBT groups. I appreciate that these groups have not been universally emancipated across the globe. Scotland has done quite well.

Regardless of this worthy broadening of purpose, economic equality remains the defining criterion. Clearly it is not acceptable that only a small number of women, members of an ethnic minority or LGBT-identifiers rise to positions of prominence in an otherwise unequal society. There were such people in the Roman Empire, 2 000 years ago. Truly ‘left-wing’ politics requires that all women, all members of ethnic minorities and all LGBT-identifiers have at least equal opportunities. This has, of course not happened and some feminist activists accuse professional women of abandoning their unskilled sisters to the mercies of capitalism.

So, back in the USA, Trump’s victory is a defeat for all of these groups but perhaps not the first-mentioned, white, working-class men and it may be reasonably argued, their communities. A Clinton victory would, I assume, have been a victory for all of the other groups but only in one sense – tolerance. Clinton’s loyalty to the banks, to the corporations and to the war aims of Sunni monarchies in the Gulf would have been of little benefit to poor black or Hispanic  Americans trapped in their ghettoes or dying in her wars nor, for that matter, to poor white women cleaning the offices at 4am for minimum wages. Trump has spoken of rapprochement with Russia and disengaging from wars which do not demonstrably benefit American citizens. I know he’s a misogynistic homophobic racist bastard. I haven’t forgotten. A Clinton victory would also have meant no change for the misery of the poor white working-classes in ‘The Rustbelt’ towns.

Clinton talks of, and justifies her email secrecy, as a reaction to a great, right-wing conspiracy against her husband and now her. Whether she is being honest or not about it, it is nonsense. She is not left-wing by the essential criteria above. The US has only one party with two right wings. Senator Sanders was genuinely left-wing and popular but he was forced out for those very reasons.

What happened in the USA was that the dominant right-wing of the Democratic Party defeated its only left-wing senator. Then the right-wing of the Democrats was beaten by the uniformly right-wing Republican Party candidate playing the only vaguely left-wing but also, satisfyingly for them, racist card it had.

Back in Scotland, why for Forfar’s sake, did the FM get involved in this bloody mess? Why didn’t she and the former FM too, just stay oot? Hasn’t she got a degree in politics? It was such a ‘no-brainer’, I haven’t met anyone who thought it was a good idea.

I’m left with the only possible explanation being that a win for any woman, any woman at all, even a war criminal, will do for Nicola. As for Salmond, how can you want Blair tried for war crimes and not her? If Clinton was a Serb, she’d be in The Hague right now awaiting trial.

Typical targets for NHS waiting times are expressed in terms of the percentage of patients seen within a certain time. In my previous report: ‘Is Scotland’s A&E still the best in the UK, in 2016? Is it still the best in the World as it was in 2015?’ at:

https://thoughtcontrolscotland.com/2016/11/04/is-scotlands-ae-still-the-best-in-the-uk-in-2016-is-it-still-the-best-in-the-world-as-it-was-in-2015-did-bbc-scotland-mention-this/

 I revealed:

Table 1: Percentage of patients spending less than 4 hours in A&E 2015–16

England            87.9%

Wales                77.7%

Scotland           93.3%

N. Ireland        71.7%

 This seems to suggest that NHS Scotland A&E is performing quite a bit (5.4%) better than NHS England but it might actually be the case that it is performing much, much, better than that or even worse (unlikely I know) than that if you looked at the average or median waiting times.

Imagine, in this extreme case to make the point, that nearly  all Scotland’s 93.3% were being seen in less than 4 hours but that nearly all were also taking more than 3 hours and that the average or median waiting time was 3.6 hours. Keep imagining and visualise statistics showing that nearly all of the England’s 87.9% were being seen in less than four hours but also that nearly all of them were being seen in less than 1 hour and that the average or median waiting time in England was 0.8 hours. In this scenario, which system performs best? It’s no-brainer, I’d say. NHS England! It’s not of course.

So, targets based on the percentage being seen within a target time are useful but quite limited. Averages or medians would be particularly useful if you wanted to compare two systems. Averages, however, are hard to find. After considerable searching, I found almost no sign of averages or medians. Government, Scottish and UK, sites do not seem to have any such data. I did however stumble on evidence from MSP Alex Neil in the Daily Record and from Health Secretary Shona Robinson, in the Dumbarton Reporter that the average waiting time ‘to start cancer treatment’, in Scotland, is 6 days.

Unable to find average or median waiting times for the same period between the arrival of the GPS referral letter and first diagnostic assessment, in England, I emailed cancer-waits@dh.gsi.gov.uk on 5^th November and awaited a reply to my request for an average or median figure. I got this on the 9^th :

‘Hi Professor John,

 Unfortunately we don’t have on hands. It has not been published that part of information straightway which is involved with the patient level data.  

 Kind regards,

 D..’

D for Dumbo you’re wondering? D for grammar exam?

I was, however, able to find a Daily Telegraph article for 2011 suggesting an average of 14 days then in NHS England. The article reported this figure against the background of suggestions that health board were actually advising GPs not to make referrals if they thought patients might not be able to make the appointments within the 14 day target and thus worsen their figures. In 2013, a Huffington Post article made this even more disturbing claim about an English health board:

‘Prof Sir Mike Richards, the chief inspector of hospitals is reported to have said that patients’ lives may have been put at risk so the Trust could give an impression it was meeting waiting list targets.’

I know, this is very very limited but I thought you’d still like to see what I did find.

Sources:

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/local-news/cancer-waiting-times-improve-lanarkshire-9023971

http://www.dumbartonreporter.co.uk/news/14841764.MSP_seeks_two_week_cancer_treatment_time_guarantee/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/8808686/NHS-hospital-playing-games-with-cancer-waiting-times.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/dr-raj-persaud/nhs-waiting-times_b_4226011.html