In December 2022, NHS England’s Type 1 (full) A&E departments only saw 49.6% of attendances within 4 hours. In Scotland, the figure was 62.1%, 25.2% better. Sources: england.nhs.uk/...022-23/...

From Public Health Scotland today: Of all cancelled planned operations during December 2022, for NHS Scotland, 565 (3.3%) were cancelled by the hospital based on clinical reasons, 493 (2.9%) were cancelled by the hospital due to capacity or non-clinical reasons, 644 (3.7%) were cancelled by the patient, and 123 (0.7%) were cancelled due to other reasons. ...

From Public Health Scotland today: Attendances were up from 21 517 to 22 430 publichealthscotland.scot/...uary-2023/

The Herald today tells us: Thousands of people have experienced near-fatal overdoses since Scotland’s drug deaths crisis was declared a public health emergency – with new figures labelled “deeply concerning”. heraldscotland.com/...-overdose/ We then hear: Naloxone? Yes that: Scotland was the first country in the world to...

No titillating images here Several media reports, such a this from the Herald have suggested higher homeless deaths in Scotland than elsewhere in the UK: Official figures for 2019 showed that Scotland had the highest homeless death rate when compared to England and Wales...

Did you think this might be about the Rev Stu Campbell? Surely the ‘beautiful’ suggested otherwise? From Butterfly Conservation, today: Scotland is the only UK country for which the all species butterfly indicators show long-term increasesin abundance and distribution, a 37% increase in abundance (1979-2019). Read the full report at: Click to access...

Covid mortality rates in UK nations: remarkable differences revealed in new analysis By stewartb The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) has recently published its latest annual report on the extent of poverty across the UK. This is based on data rich research that has over the years gained the status of an authoritative source. See JRF 26 January (2023) UK Poverty 2023: The essential guide to...

From BBC Scotland today: A father has told the BBC he moved his family out of a flat complex in Glasgow after fire safety issues were found. Abhijeet Kadwe said he feared for his children’s safety after learning that the Lancefield Quay flats had the same cladding as Grenfell Tower. A 24/7 fire patrol has been put in place in the building by the Scottish government after developers failed to...

In the Murder two days ago: Former Scotland coach Jim Tefler is still adamant his nation should “show maturity” by ditching their national anthem. The Scots will blast out Flower of Scotland loud and proud at Twickenham before their blockbuster Six Nations Calcutta Cup clash against England on Saturday. But Tefler, 82, believes it is time for the anthem to be shelved because of its...

The RAJAR report this week suggests: BBC Radio Scotland has lost a fifth of all listeners in a year, according to the latest audience numbers. The figures published by the research body Rajar, show that nearly 196,000 people have turned off the national broadcaster over the last 12 months.  In the final quarter of 2021, 976,000 people were tuning in, but by the same time last year that...

Why is Miles Briggs looking so glum? The Herald has used the same image from their 2018: Rape Crisis Scotland slam Tory MSP over ‘intimidating’ sexual harassment probe So, a high profile case leads to an understandable surge in complaints, to local housing departments or other owners, about mould by social housing tenants and the Scottish Conservatives are platformed by Bol in the...

stewartb I’ve only read the front page of The Herald – magnifying the picture above to read the article. I have no wish to give The Herald the benefit of my custom even tho’ a decade ago it was my newspaper of choice. It’s an appalling piece of journalism: it is rightly being called out in the blog post as a classic example of seeking to stoke moral panic. Yet another example: a pattern...

The Herald likes to think of itself as ‘serious’ and informative. Here it is in the gutter, with its eyes still fixed in that gutter, not reporting reality for the benefit of its readers but constructing a dark alternative reality within which the vulnerable may be damaged. What evidence do they have? ONE whistleblower, unnamed, but in Glasgow’s east end. With the smallest...

I won’t be using an exploitative image of a sad child here, as BBC Scotland have. Yesterday, they were keen to tell us: The number of people classed as homeless in Scotland hit an all-time high last year, according to the latest figures. There were 28,944 open homelessness cases in September 2022 – the highest since Scottish government records began in 2002. The figures were an 11%...

Scotland’s largest A&E department at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow, often fondly described by Scotland’s media as ‘troubled’ by, for example, pigeon fungus, has recovered to levels not seen since January 2022. In week-ending 22 January 2023, 67.2% of attendances were seen and resulted in a subsequent admission, transfer or discharge within 4 hours....

Leah Gunn Barrett Michael Gove’s admission of Tory culpability six years after the 2017 Grenfell Tower disaster won’t bring back the 72 people who died. The deadly blaze was caused by the lack of English fire safety building regulations, which Tory ministers would no doubt deem to be ‘useless red tape.’ After all, the Tories’ property development chums are more important than some poor...

From Reporting Scotland this morning, as all of England’s schools close, we hear: Most schools in Clackmannanshire and Aberdeen are closed… There is of course no public information reminder that in 30 out of 32 council areas, schools are not on strike today. Muuum, my school is closed, Jennifer told me. We’re not in Aberdeen or Clackthingy! I was listening to that lassie on the...

From BBC Reporting Scotland this morning as they work hard to make sure you don’t feel excluded from the even more disruptive events elsewhere in the UK Thousands of workers from a range of sectors are preparing top joining picket lines across the country… After a string of warnings of industrial action, of the kind a public service broadcaster should be providing, we hear in some...

stewartb Yesterday the BBC News website had this headline: ‘NHS plan: £1bn for hospital beds and ambulance fleet’. Beneath we learned what the Westminster government is now promising: ‘It has set goals that by March 2024: 76% of A&E patients will be dealt with in four hours. Currently fewer than 70% are. The official target is 95%.’ Now given that the same article indicates that the...

After many years of teaching about moral panics, like the most recent one in Scotland, Trans Killers, I’m among the last to believe in any, but these peer-reviewed reports, popping up in my investigations today, all in European Psychiatry, Cambridge University Press, have me thinking. From: Bridgend “Bebo Internet Suicide Cult” and ritual violence in Wales Results Colin Batley, a...