A story of survival and a bouquet for the NHS

Wasteful bureaucracy, hospital infections, staff discontent, (another) computer shambles, missed cancer treatment targets, postcode lotteries for prescriptions . . . the list goes on and on and on. If you'd arrived from another planet, you'd be forgiven for assuming that the National Health Service in Scotland is in a terminal condition. If the sun emerges briefly from the dark cloud of negative media coverage, it is usually to announce a "miracle" cure or "magic bullet" treatment. This is not simply some tabloid tendency. By my calculations, in the past two years The Herald has written 116 leaders about the NHS, of which I'm personally responsible for nearly half. Of those, 83 have been critical in some measure and just six have proffered bouquets. So for every "Reason to be in good heart: hi-tech treatment proves life-saver", there have been about 14 in the vein of "NHS must do better: mystery shoppers uncover catalogue of errors".