THE BBC’s Scotland Editor Sarah Smith has been forced to apologise for a major blunder over Scotland’s A&E figures.
On the UK-wide Six O’Clock news on Tuesday, Smith said that more than 100,000 patients in Scotland had spent more than four hours in emergency departments last week.
In reality, that figure is actually for a whole YEAR and the real figure for the week was 5686 — as stated on the BBC’s own website.
And the total number A&Es visits made across Scotland that week was 25,865.
Smith faced criticism on social media and yesterday she posted on Twitter: “This week I made a factual error in a report on the BBC 6 o’clock news. For which I apologise.
“I mistakenly used the annual figure for A&E waiting times in Scotland instead of the weekly one. As soon as I realised my error I changed the report for all subsequent broadcasts.”
Some Twitter users were far from satisfied. One tweeted: “Thank you for your apology it was a humdinger of an error for a professional to make. You can see why some might think that BBC Scotland is politically biased.”
Another said: “If the error was genuine then the apology should be aired on the BBC 6 o’clock news. Posting on Twitter does not reach the same audience as the original misleading message did. Can I ask when The BBC News will broadcast your apology please?”
Yet another added: “Unless you make that apology on the same programme, at the same time then it means nothing.”
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