Paramedic is cleared after going to shops on urgent call

A PARAMEDIC who stopped to go to the shops while responding to an urgent call has been cleared of misconduct.

A fitness to practise hearing found the case against Victoria Arnott ‘not well founded’ after she said she had visited a chemist as she was feeling unwell.

The panel ruled the former Scottish Ambulance Service worker had stopped to pick up medication on July 4 last year because she wanted to continue to work and provide a service for patients in Fife.

Miss Arnott, 38, had been allocated a doctor’s urgent call to attend at the home of a depressed and suicidal woman in Lochgelly.

But questions were raised after a delay of seven minutes was noted by colleagues at the ambulance control centre.

The Health and Care Professions Council’s conduct and competence committee heard Miss Arnott told

‘She is a credible, reliable witness’

her colleagues she had stopped to buy computer equipment.

But she told the committee she had been too embarrassed to tell them about her ‘health issues’ lest she became the subject of gossip.

Miss Arnott, who joined the ambulance service in 1999, said she had stopped to pick up over-thecounter medication for women. She admitted she had not asked for permission to stop.

The panel – which said it found her to be ‘an extremely credible, reliable and professional’ witness – ruled it had not been proven that the ambulance was misused because there was no clear Scottish Ambulance Service policy for employees on the issue of stops.

Chairman Sarah Baalham said: ‘This matter was a departure from the standards to be expected from a paramedic but was not so serious as to merit the description of misconduct.

‘She was motivated by a desire to continue to provide a service for patients. This case is not well founded.’

Miss Arnott declined to comment on the panel’s decision.