Miles Briggs – More Like Miles Away From Reality!

Tory MSP Miles Briggs tweeted a Daily Record article which claims that “Nearly a quarter (25%) of operations cancelled by NHS Lothian last year due to staff shortages.” Here is the link

Lets look at Miles’ tweet.

Now, its not difficult to view the Scotland wide cancelled operations via NHS Performs.  Here is the link.

The beauty of this site is that it doesn’t matter which hospital you click on, you can see all of the numbers for Scotland back to January 2017, a whole 14 months of data.  Let’s look at the Lothians though shall we?

There are 5 hospitals where data can be taken from. They are:

• Roodlands General Hospital
• Royal Hospital of Sick Children in Edinburgh
• Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh
• St Johns Hospital Howden
• Western General Hospital.

Now, when you select any one of those hospitals, you are given 3 data sets.  One for the hospital, one for the board and one for Scotland.  In this case, since the article claims to be about the Lothians, we will look at the board figures first.

There are two sets to look at.  Percentage of planned operations cancelled and Percentage of planned operations cancelled for non-clinical reasons.  Let’s just check that Daily Record article again and see if we can figure out where that 25% comes from.

Bingo – The number of procedures cancelled by the health board due to capacity or non-medical reasons in 2017/18 was 25%. Hell, that’s as clear as mud so let’s just look at every reason possible to see if we can come to 25%.

OK, so let’s look at the numbers and see if we can get the 25% claim for 2017.

Month	Cancelled Operations (Lothians) (%)
January 2017	11.3
February 2017	10.8
March 2017	10.9
April 2017	9.4
May 2017	9.3
June 2017	10.5
July 2017	8.8
August 2017	9.4
September 2017	9.8
October 2017	8.5
November 2017	8.9
December 2017	12.7
AVERAGE CANCELLATION RATE	10%

So the claim that 25% of operations were cancelled due to capacity in Lothians is utter rubbish.  The actual figure of ALL CANCELLED PLANNED OPERATIONS in Lothians being cancelled for the whole year in 2017 is 10%, the highest in December 2017 at 12.7% and the lowest in October 2017 at 8.5%.

Now let’s look at the other claims in the article.

HNS Borders had the highest rate of cancelled operations due to staff shortages.  At a staggering 51.8% it is claimed. Let’s check.

Month	Cancelled Operations (Borders) (%)
January 2017	15.9
February 2017	8.1
March 2017	7.9
April 2017	11.2
May 2017	10
June 2017	7.6
July 2017	10.4
August 2017	9.1
September 2017	7.1
October 2017	10.8
November 2017	13
December 2017	17.3
AVERAGE CANCELLATION RATE	10.7%

So the claim that 51.8% of operations were cancelled due to capacity in the Borders is utter rubbish.  The actual figure of ALL CANCELLED PLANNED OPERATIONS in the Borders being cancelled for the whole year in 2017 is 10.7%, the highest in December 2017 at 17.3% and the lowest in September 2017 at 7.1%.

Let’s see if we can get 3 in a row.

The article claims the Golden Jubilee National Hospital had a huge 42.3% cancelled. Let’s check it out!

Month	Cancelled Operations (Golden Jubilee Hosp) (%)
January 2017	5.6
February 2017	3.6
March 2017	5.9
April 2017	6.2
May 2017	6.8
June 2017	5.9
July 2017	5.2
August 2017	5.1
September 2017	7
October 2017	5.9
November 2017	5.4
December 2017	6.4
AVERAGE CANCELLATION RATE	5.75%

So the claim that 42.3% of operations were cancelled due to capacity in the Golden Jubilee Hospital is utter rubbish.  The actual figure of ALL CANCELLED PLANNED OPERATIONS in the Golden Jubilee Hospital being cancelled for the whole year in 2017 is 5.75%, the highest in September 2017 at 7% and the lowest in February 2017 at 3.6%.

Let’s just struggle on with the last 2. NHS Fife at 39.9% and NHS Forth at 34.5%.

Month	Cancelled Operations (Fife) (%)	Cancelled Operations (Forth) (%)
January 2017	10.5	10.8
February 2017	8.9	9.5
March 2017	8.6	8.4
April 2017	10	8.5
May 2017	8.5	9.7
June 2017	6.7	11.6
July 2017	7.8	8.8
August 2017	6.2	9.3
September 2017	7.1	11.5
October 2017	5.9	10.5
November 2017	9.1	8.6
December 2017	11.6	10.8
AVERAGE CANCELLATION RATE	8.4%	9.8%

So the claim that NHS Fife’s rate of 39.9% and NHS Forth’s rate of 34.5% of operations were cancelled due to capacity is also utter rubbish.  The actual figure of ALL CANCELLED PLANNED OPERATIONS in Fife is 8.4% and Forth at 9.8% being cancelled for the whole year in 2017, the highest in September 2017 at 7% and the lowest in February 2017 at 3.6%.

Now, onto the piece on Scotland as a whole.

Month	Cancelled Operations (Scotland) (%)
January 2017	9.8
February 2017	9.3
March 2017	9.1
April 2017	9.4
May 2017	8.8
June 2017	8.8
July 2017	8.2
August 2017	8.4
September 2017	9.2
October 2017	8.5
November 2017	8.8
December 2017	10.8
AVERAGE CANCELLATION RATE	9.1%

The Daily record claims that the total number of operations cancelled due to capacity reasons in Scotland as a whole was 25.1%.

No, it wasn’t Daily record, it was 9.1%.

So here you have it folks, the Daily Record and Miles Briggs talking utter rubbish and spreading fake news across Scotland to gain political points, undermining the hard work of our beloved NHS – of which WE ALL BENEFIT!

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