Paramedics miss targets for life-threatening emergencies
Ambulance service fails to meet eight-minute treatment pledge
PATIENTS in life-threatening situations are not being treated fast enough by paramedics, according to new statistics.
The Scottish Ambulance Service said it had faced a “challenging” 12 months with increasing demands as well as financial constraints.
Annual figures reveal the service has missed a target to respond to at least three-quarters of life-threatening emergencies within eight minutes.
Only 72.2 per cent of such calls were dealt with in that time in 2014/15, down from 73.9 per cent the previous year.
However, the average response time for life-threatening calls was maintained at 6.6 minutes, compared to 9.5 minutes a decade ago.
Ambulance staff also surpassed a separate target to answer 90 per cent of 999 calls within 10 seconds.
The period coincided with an 11.5 per cent increase in complaints about the ambulance service, up to 530 for the year.
Despite this, the Scottish Ambulance Service said more lives were saved and more patients were treated in their local communities last year.
In particular, there was a significant year-on-year increase in the number of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest lives saved, from 509 to 658.
David Garbutt, chairman of the Scottish Ambulance Service, added that the service had met financial targets for the year, achieving efficiency savings of £8.7 million.
Mr Garbutt said: “Despite an exceptionally busy year for our frontline teams, the service is saving more lives than ever before.
“There are now 200 more cardiac arrest patients being saved by ambulance teams in Scotland every year compared to five years ago and we continue to improve on this every year.”
In the last 10 years, demand for ambulances has increased 55 per cent. The air ambulance service flew 3,559 missions, an increase of five per cent on the previous year.
Dr iver crews meanwhile responded to 750,000 emergency incidents.
Mr Garbutt said: “Around 20 per cent of these cases are potentially life-threatening and more than a third are requests from GPs, referrals from 111, hospital transfers, community alarms and other emergency services.
“While the response time is an important aspect of pre-hospital care, the clinical expertise of ambulance teams is key to maintaining good patient outcomes.
“The ongoing development of clinical care skills is reflected in the consistently high survival rates that are now being achieved in Scotland.
“Our staff are working very hard in an extremely busy environment and every day they continue to provide compassionate, evidencebased care for patients in often very challenging circumstances.
“Their commitment and dedication to patients is exceptional.”
Earlier this year a senior Scottish paramedic Anthony Haley, a team leader in the Scottish Ambulance Service, said targets should be adjusted to reflect which incidents needed a fast response.
At present, 999 calls are split into three categories in order to identify which ones need the quickest response.