Summary
The article describes the Scottish Labour party retracing of its earlier claim that it costs £500 million for NHS to treat knife crime wounds a year (Hawkes, para 2). The article refers to the United Kingdom in general and Scotland in particular. Scottish Labour retraced their steps on April 20, 2011, and the article refers to how they came up with the erroneous figure, therefore the article refers to a period before April 20, 2011.
The reason behind the calculated disapproval of the Scottish Labour claims is so that the reader notes the tendency of politicians to claim public expenditure costs that are inflated and unverified. The article manages to disapprove the Scottish Labour party by calculating the estimated cost of knife crime wounds to NHS from actual total costs reported in 2006 and using estimates of the ratio of knife crime wounds to total wounds in coming up with a final specific estimate. The estimate turns out to be much lower than the figure given by the Labour party and therefore serves as proof beyond doubt that Labour had inflated their quoted figure of £500 million a year.
Business Statistics of Knife Crime Costs
What is the statistic?
Knife Crime costs the NHS £500 million a year.
What is the statistic describing?
The statistic is describing the claims by Labour that the NHS uses £500 million a year to treat wounds caused by knife crimes.
What does the statistic mean within the context of the article?
The statistics mean that Labour wanted the NHS to be allocated £500 million a year to treat wounds caused by knife crimes.
Does it fail to support the point the article is making?
It does not support the point the article is making.
How effective is your statistic in supporting the point? If not what would be a more effective way to statistically support the point?
A more effective way of supporting the point would be to provide a breakdown of how knife crime wound costs add up to the £500 million amount and the specific number of hospitals that deal with the wounds. It would also be appropriate to provide the number of cases that each hospital treat in a year.
How the statistic was collected?
The £500 million figure was arrived at by using a report obtained from the Strathclyde Police Violence Reduction Unit. The report suggested that 3 to 6 percent of the health service budget goes to violent treatment and offers a figure of £258 to £517 (Hawkes, para 5). Labour then chose £500 million as a random figure from the range given.
Does bias appear to be present?
Bias appears to be on the higher limit of the range given in the report.
Conclusion
Labour was not straightforward in their claim of £500 million per year and that is why the figure is disputed. Secondly, Labour does not inform of why their figure is near the top limit.
Business Statistics of Wounding Crime Costs
What is the statistic?
The cost of wounding to NHS in 2003 prices was £1.719 billion adjusted for inflation to £2.1 billion today (Hawkes, para 8).
What is the statistic describing?
The statistic describes the total amount that the NHS spent in treating offenses that were categorized as wounding.
What does the statistic mean within the context of the article?
In the context of the article, the statistic infers that the amount claimed by Labour to be the cost to NHS of knife crimes must fit the percentage attributed to knife wounds treated by the NHS. Therefore, the total wounding cost provides a total upon which knife crime wound costs must be subtracted from. The statistic also indicates that the actual figure for the current year is higher than the given figure for 2003 because of inflation adjustments.
Does it support the point the article is making?
The statistic supports the point that knife crime costs ought to be lower than the Labour quoted figure.
How effective is your statistic in supporting the point?
The statistic is effective because it offers an actual reference of 2003 and reported total costs for that year, adjusting the figure for inflation to arrive at today’s total figure.
How the statistic was collected?
The statistic was obtained from a report of a Home Office group published in June 2005 (Hawkes, para 7).
Does bias appear to be present?
The statistic does not appear to be biased.
Conclusion
The statistic is appropriate for the reader and explains clearly, what it represents as well as its source. The article also describes the importance of the statistic.
Business Statistics of Knife Wounds Costs
What is the statistic?
The correct annual NHS spending on knife wounds is approximately £ 147 million and this is the cost in both Wales and England.
What is the statistic describing?
The statistic describes the correct estimate of the cost that NHS incurs to treat knife crime wounds.
What does the statistic mean within the context of the article?
The statistic clarifies that the Labour figure of £500 million was based on the upper limit.
Does it support the point the article is making?
The statistic supports the point of the article that the Labour quote of £500 million as costs of knife crime wounds to NHS was superfluous.
How effective is your statistic in supporting the point?
It is effective because it is contained in a background of how it was obtained.
How the statistic was collected?
The figure that the article claims to be the correct one was derived from a 2007 report by the Kings’ College, London. In this report, the contribution of knife wounds was a small figure of between five and ten percent of all wounds. A conservative figure of 7 percent was then used to arrive at the £147 million figure provided (Hawkes, para 11).
Does bias appear to be present?
The statistic does not appear to be biased because it is derived using the mid-value of the range provided.
Conclusion
The statistic seals doubts about the correctness of the Labour figure of £500 million.
Work Cited
Hawkes, Nigel. “Scottish Labour in retreat over crime claims”. Straight Statistics. 2011. Web.