Summary
This week: Seven Day NHS. As a commitment appears in the Queen's Speech to introduce a 'truly seven day-a-week NHS' we look at David Cameron's assertion that mortality rates are 16% higher for people admitted on a Sunday over those admitted on a Wednesday. And is seven day working really about saving lives.
John Nash The mathematician and scientist, Nobel Laureate and subject of the film a beautiful mind was killed in car accident earlier this month. We look at why he was so important to game theory.
Productivity? We're told we have a productivity problem in the UK. What is it, how is it measured and why is it so low in the UK compared to other economies. We get an economist to explain the answers to a listener.
What is a generation? A loyal listener has asked how you measure a generation. We ask a sociologist and a demographer.
Animal Slaughter How many animals are killed each day for food? One claim suggested it was half a billion worldwide, which sounds like a lot to us. Are we really pigging out to such an extent? Are we all so hungry we could all eat a horse? Or is this just a load of bull?
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Thanks for downloading this edition of More or Less, here's Tim Halford. |
| 0:04.7 | Hello and welcome to More or Less, the programme that takes the numb out of numbers |
| 0:10.0 | and the tat out of statistics. This week we ask whether we're really slaughtering |
| 0:15.1 | half a billion animals every day. We try to solve the productivity puzzle |
| 0:20.7 | and we also remember mathematician and Nobel laureate John Nash. |
| 0:25.1 | He made one of those crucial steps that occasionally occurs in science where you |
| 0:31.8 | take an existing theory and you show how it can be massively generalized. |
| 0:37.3 | And only when this happened did people begin to realise the power of the theory |
| 0:43.3 | in applications across the social and in fact the biological sciences. |
| 0:47.8 | But first, the government has introduced legislation this week to provide a truly |
| 0:53.3 | seven day NHS and the Prime Minister David Cameron had this to say. |
| 0:58.5 | It is a shocking fact but mortality rates for patients admitted to hospital on a Sunday |
| 1:04.3 | can be 16% higher than on a Wednesday. While the biggest numbers of seriously ill patients |
| 1:10.2 | arrive at the weekend when hospitals are least well equipped to handle them. |
| 1:14.9 | So seven day care isn't just about a better service for the patient, |
| 1:19.1 | it's also about saving lives. For those of you wondering what a 16% increase in death rates means, |
| 1:26.4 | the claim is that if you were admitted to hospital on Wednesday with a 1% chance of dying, |
| 1:32.0 | your risk of dying if admitted on a weekend would be nudged up to 1.16% rather than |
| 1:39.5 | soaring to 17%. But that's just the start of the questions with this number. |
| 1:45.5 | And many of you reached for your computers, your smartphones or your |
| 1:49.2 | carrier pigeons to get in touch. For example, loyal listener Becky Dawson. |
| 1:54.6 | Much has been made of a statistic that you're apparently more likely to die in hospital |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.