TTE the week in numbers

Bad figures for cancer patients and loads of BBC drivel.

64%  

the percentage of cancer patients who started treatment within 62 days of cancer being suspected, 

Nearly 100,000 waited longer than they should for life-saving care.

Warning: these figures come from the BBC’s analysis of cancer waiting times. The BBC’s standards of reporting and their partisan approach to healthcare (see below) means that you should take the figures with a pinch of salt. 

Loads of BBC drivel. The piece by Nick Triggle on cancer waiting times with which we opened this post also quoted a gentleman by the name of Tim Gardner of the Health Foundation (a think tank).

He states: "The NHS is experiencing a difficult winter amid an increase in seasonal flu and continued industrial action." This appears to have been inserted as an excuse or mitigation for the apparently terrible figures in the article. 

TTE does not do politics, so we will not comment on industrial action. However, the usual seasonal F-word excuse, thankfully, does not wash this year; it is drivel. 

Here is wh…