Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

Duplicate.

It does appear that most of the leaders are very concerned that we may leave. Only yesterday Merkel offered Cameron help in stopping benefits for migrants.

Camoron At It Again Distorting Facts and Statistics On The NHS

This is the one taken offline but I cached it.

Second reading
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Have A&E waiting times fallen?
3 July
Yesterday at PMQs the Prime Minister stated:

When [Labour was in Government], the average waiting time [in A&E] was 77 minutes; under this Government, it is 30 minutes.

This claim has been made a number of times by Ministers in the House of Commons. But other reports indicate that that A&E performancehas declined, with the 4-hour target having been missed in England’s major departments every week since last July. So where does the PM’s claim come from, and is it correct? Here I’ll suggest that it relies on a simplistic reading of the data, and that the measure he refers to is not the most natural indicator of the “average waiting time” in A&E.

Means and Medians

The PM is referring to the mean “duration to initial assessment” in A&E – i.e. the time between when a patient arrives and when they are first assessed*. (This indicator is not available in the routinely published data, but can be viewed in these tables which were given in response to a parliamentary question). Here is a chart of the mean and median time to initial assessment from 2008 to 2012:

Initial assesments to A&E

Two things should jump out from this data: first, the large difference between the median and the mean waiting time; and second, the dramatic fall at the beginning of 2011-12.

Whenever there is a large difference between the median and the mean, this usually indicates that the mean is being distorted by some outlying values – in this case, some very long waits for initial assessment. In their publications on A&E waiting times, the Health and Social Care Information Centre warn that these extremes are “particularly sensitive to poor data quality and definitional issues”. This suggests that the mean value here is not a good indicator of time to initial assessment in A&E; so we should rely on the median value to tell us what the typical time to initial assessment in A&E is. But the median has remained more or less unchanged at around 10 minutes to initial assessment, which does not show the trend that the PM refers to.

What about the dramatic fall in the mean in April 2011? This corresponds with the time to initial assessment in A&E being designated as a “care quality indicator” and becoming subject to mandatory reporting (along with several other similar measures). So it’s plausible that the fall in the mean in April 2011 reflects an improvement in data collection, quality and reporting, rather than any genuine change in waiting times. It’s also worth noting that the 2012/13 data has over three times as many data points – “attendances with a valid duration to initial assessment” – than the 2008/09 data, and so is likely to be more reliable than this earlier data.

What is the ‘average waiting time’?

So the data on time to initial assessment does not support the PM’s statement. But there is a further problem here: the time to initial assessment is not a natural indicator of the typical waiting time in A&E. After all, the median time to initial assessment is only 10 minutes: patients will obviously still have to wait in A&E, often for a significant period, after their initial assessment is completed. If, after a trip to A&E, you were asked “How long did you have to wait?”, it is very unlikely that you would reply by reporting the time to your initial assessment. Instead, you’d probably respond by saying how long it took before you were treated, or perhaps giving the total time you spent in A&E.

Thankfully, these measures are both included in the published data on A&E quality. Here is a chart showing how these have changed between 2008 and 2013:

Waiting Times A&E

On these measures – which as we saw above, are more natural ways to report “average A&E waiting times” – there has been no reduction in waiting times. Time to treatment is static save for seasonal variation, and total time in A&E has been steadily increasing. A fuller analysis of the published data suggests that total time in A&E is only increasing for patients who require admission – and that total time in A&E for non-admitted patients is also unchanged.

Summing Up

The data does not show that the average time in A&E has fallen since 2008. Rather, the typical total time in A&E has risen (for admitted patients, at least), and the typical time to treatment has remained static.

It is welcome that the rich data on the amount of time patients spend in A&E is becoming part of the wider political debate on the NHS. But in order for it to be useful and informative, it must be discussed in a way which fully respects the data.

* Note that the Health Secretary stated on 9th June that the median waiting time had fallen from 77 minutes. This is false.



Author: Carl Baker

House of Commons Library take down blogpost which criticised David Cameron’s NHS claims..........SHOWN ABOVE BUT I COPIED IT BEFORE THEY COULD REMOVE IT
03
Thursday
Jul 2014
Posted by Mike Sivier in Uncategorized ≈ Leave a comment
5 Votes

Mike Sivier:

It doesn’t surprise me in the least that the House of Commons Library is now being censored by the Tory propaganda police. I hope Labour will do something about this.
Originally posted on alittleecon:

Earier I reblogged a post from the House of Commons Library which fact-checked David Cameron’s claims that waiting times at A&E have fallen. It found those claims wanting. About half an hour later, the post was removed and replaced with this message:

“The blog post “Have A&E waiting times fallen?” has been removed by the House of Commons Library as it does not meet our expected standards of impartiality. A revised post will be uploaded as soon as possible.”

It seems probable that this has been done following howls of protest from the Conservative Party. It seems as though stating facts isn’t impartial if those facts are at odds with something the PM says.

Horray!

How much will that save the UK?

How much to ship them home?

How many body bags are included?

Politics under Cameron and affiliates are resorting to Goebel's level of propaganda to try to stay in power.

A stinking government with stinking moral standards.

Note that the Health Secretary stated on 9th June that the median waiting time had fallen from 77 minutes. This is false.

CAUGHT ONCE AGAIN.

Nice detective work ehhhhhh Fred.

So let me get this straight FARQUIR. (What sort of prick on this planet calls himself Mick Farquire Kipper) Freds bitch this is your life :o)

FARQUIR?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Chris you really need treatment for your alchol abuse.

PISSED YET AGAIN.

He is joining UK.

has a life long conservative I find CAMERON a very dishonest person and the party
now a party of liars . most conservatives who I no are switching to UKIP.

the tory party needs a leader with guts and balls .
DAVID DAVIES SHOULD BE THE LEADER NOT THE WIMP WE NOW HAVE I CAN NOT VOTE FOR HIM

Yes he would be a good choice Tanker.

Camoron is an arogant liar and he will pay for it.

Cameroon is doing a great job...mind you, the others are trying hard too.



Conservative party membership has nearly halved under Cameron


18 September 2013 8:45


134,000. That’s how many members the Conservative Party now has, according to Paul Goodman at ConservativeHome. Despite months of campaigning from the site, the only figure Conservative HQ would release is that 253,600 people voted for David Cameron as leader in 2005. Today’s number means that membership has nearly halved throughout Cameron’s eight-year term as party leader.

Tracking the memberships of political parties is difficult, as they are under no obligation to release any details. The House of Commons Library released a paper in December last year, compiling all the figures they could find. From this, this is how memberships of the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties has dropped since the 1997 election:






more: http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2013/09/conservative-party-membership-has-nearly-halved-throughout-david-camerons-premiership/

Coulson gets JUST 18 months!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

he'l be out in 5 months.......pathetic.

Mind still further trials await.

a good biography for you to read .... The Valley by Richard Benson
it's about a mining family in Yorkshire from 1907 to about now (I think, for I haven't finished it yet)

even fred would enjoy it :-)

==================

actually, it's very sad indeed and certainly puts the closure of the mines in a different perspective

nevertheless, I'm afraid it was inevitable for all sorts of fairly obvious reasons

the mines will open again for the next iceage which will come

When???????

That reminds me ive got an iceberg lettuce sandwich waiting for me. Freshly picked from the gardens. Bit of mayo on top.........brilliant.