The Herald rest home series

The Herald has started its series on rest homes. We’ve all been waiting for this since Whale published their plans several weeks ago about what types of stories they were seeking, who they would get comment from etc etc.

I thought the opening paragraph was interesting:

A Herald investigation of rest homes – where a greater proportion of elderly people die than in 12 other developed countries – has found that although most care is at least adequate, some reflects major failings.

So in other words we have the 13th best rest home mortality rate in the developed (and no doubt entire) world, which puts us in the top third or so of countries. It takes considerable effort to make that seem a bad statistic.

That is not to say that there are not issues with some rest homes. But I’m not sure portraying what is a pretty good statistic as a very negative one is helpful.