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Dear Friend,
We expect the House of Commons Procedure Committee will soon announce its report and recommendations for changing parliament’s broken corrections process.
Under current rules, most MPs aren’t allowed to correct the official record even if they wanted to. And those who can correct themselves—Government ministers, our most powerful elected representatives—too often choose not to. This isn’t good enough.
What happens next is vital. MPs will have the chance to debate the recommendations from the report and get their house in order, but we need as many of them to show up as possible.
We will be in touch soon with details on how you can ask your MP to attend and make sure they know why this is an issue we all care about.
In the meantime, can you sign the petition to help us reach 50,000 people? The more of us there are, the louder our voice.
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Thank you for your support,
Andrew Dudfield—Interim Chief Executive
Full Fact
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FACT CHECK
Last week the Labour party released new data about the number of pagers being used in the NHS, and claimed that the health service is estimated to own 10% of the devices in use worldwide.
Its press release also said there are nearly 80,000 pagers still being used across the NHS in England. Both figures were included in stories on MailOnline and in The Times.
When Full Fact asked Labour about its claim that the NHS is estimated to own 10% of the world’s pagers, it did not respond, and it has not provided evidence which substantiates it. Political parties should ensure they back up their claims with evidence and if claims are based on figures, they should be transparent about sources and calculations.
The 10% figure was used four years ago in an announcement from the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC), and it may stem from coverage of a clinical messaging company’s 2017 report. The announcement was linked to in the Labour press release, but not specifically cited as the source of the figure.
Other more recent figures from US pager companies suggest the NHS may account for far fewer than 10% of the world’s pagers.
Labour’s press release said that Freedom of Information requests sent to all NHS trusts in England by the party found that 79,000 pagers are still in use across the health service.
Full Fact has not seen the FOI responses and therefore we don’t know how many trusts responded with figures, but we have no reason to think this figure is wrong.
However, other estimates suggest there may be more than two million pagers in the USA, alone.
It is not clear what proportion of the two million estimate is represented by smartphone paging apps, or whether the estimate can be directly compared with the NHS figure.
But the 79,000 pagers Labour found to be in use in the NHS would represent just one in 26 of just over two million, if that is a correct and comparable estimate—and this does not take into account the number of pagers which may be in service outside the NHS in the UK, and across the rest of the world.
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FACT CHECK
At Prime Minister’s Questions last week, the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said that the government is delivering the “fastest wage growth in years”.
It is true that the UK is currently seeing nominal wage growth consistently higher than before the pandemic.
But, when looking at real wages, which are adjusted for inflation, growth is falling.
There are several ways wage growth can be counted. We’ve asked Number 10 which specific figures Mr Sunak was referring to, but have not received a response.
Selective use of official information without appropriate context and caveats can damage public trust in both official information and politicians.
It’s important that MPs use official information transparently and with all relevant context and caveats when a claim is first made, and quickly rectify oversights when they occur.
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FACT CHECK
The health secretary Steve Barclay told the NHS Confed Expo conference last week that the World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared the pandemic “officially over”, adding that “its after effects are still very much being felt”.
As Full Fact has written before, this is not quite right. While the WHO did declare last month that the pandemic is no longer a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC), it did not say that the pandemic itself was over. In fact, it has been clear that it considers the pandemic to be “ongoing”.
We contacted Steve Barclay MP to request a correction regarding this claim. Mr Barclay is yet to respond.
Bad information about health policy can foster distrust of medical professionals, and distract from or undermine medical consensus and public health messaging. It is particularly important that ministers should use language precisely when talking about public health.
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MORE FACT CHECKS
Also this week...
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All the best,
Team Full Fact
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