End of the road for vanbulance crew
Two NHS bosses quit camper van hire firm
Two senior managers at the Scottish Ambulance Service have quit a camper van hire firm exposed by the Sunday Mail.
We told how leading staff operated the “£8000-a-month side hustle” from the same building as their NHS headquarters at a time when the Army had been called in to support 999 crews.
Billy Kinniburgh, an SAS head of planning and delivery, and manager colleague Kevin Kelly were both previously named on the Companies House website as people with “signif icant control” over the firm.
However, that status was terminated last week and both have also resigned as directors of the company.
We revealed in September how up to seven key officials with the SAS were operating the business at an executive office next to Glasgow Airport – which also housed the NHS Covid testing hub where they worked.
When our reporter posed as a prospective customer, SAS strategic operations manager Derek Loughery – who was not on shift at the time – showed us around a £ 69,000 VW Grand California van in the car park of the Inospace building. Loughery is also no longer a director of the company. When we inquired about renting a van, Kinniburgh – who was awarded the Queen’s Ambulance Service Medal last year for his work on the pandemic response – answered the company phone number and told us we could view one the next day.
He said if we went ahead with a £1100-a-week rental, the vehicle could be picked up from the Inospace base with secure parking for our car at the site.
Following our revelations, SAS senior management launched an investigation into the firm.
The agency admitted they knew about the camper van firm but promised to carry out strict disciplinary action if second-job work had been carried out on ambulance service time.
Opposition parties demanded assurances that staff did not have conflicts of interest. At the time, an emergency services crisis had left an 86-year-old woman waiting in agony for eight hours for an ambulance after breaking her hip, while there had been reports of another pensioner dying after a 40-hour wait.
An SAS spokesman said: “Camper Vans Scotland Ltd is an independent company registered with Companies House, is not linked to SAS in any way, nor is it located on SAS property.
“Any issues are a matter for Camper Vans Scotland.”