200 Scots a day left without ambulance
TWO hundred Scots patients every day last year couldn’t be transported to hospitals because of a lack of ambulance resources.
More than 70,000 patients suffered cancellations or non-availability.
A Freedom of Information request by Scottish Labour found 22,632 ambulance trips had to be cancelled because there was no ambulance available to get patients to appointments.
A further 50,604 were turned away from booking an ambulance because the Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS) had reached capacity or could not make the journeys in the appropriate time.
The combined figure is up 41,644 since 2010, although the SAS said the rise may appear worse because figures were not properly collated before.
However, ambulance staff say the increases are down to “lack of resources”.
Labour health spokesman Anas Sarwar said: “This all points towards a decade of SNP mismanagement.”
An SAS spokesman said: “In 2016, the service successfully undertook almost 895,000 patient transport journeys.
“There are many reasons for booked journeys being cancelled. Two-thirds are cancelled because circumstances changed.”
Health Secretary Shona Robison said: “The service will always try to minimise disruption to patients who need transport to their hospital appointments.”