Mental health crisis in Scotland’s ambulance service as stress increases

Increasing numbers of Scottish Ambulance Service staff are being signed off with anxiety, stress and depression. it has emerged.

Research by the Scottish Conservatives has revealed that hundreds of workers are absent with mental health issues every year.

The incidence is on the rise, with 404 off in 2016-17, 455 the year later, then 520 in 2018-19.

And for the first seven months of 2019-20, there were 379 staff signed off with those issues.

If that trend continues for the whole of this year, 648 will have been signed off, another new record.

Bosses at the organisation are increasingly concerned about the impact of mental health issues on the ambulance service.

In September, they noted at a board meeting: “Absence cases for stress-anxiety-mental health related conditions have increased, resulting in long term absence causes which continue to require significant attention.”

The Scottish Conservatives said the SNP government had to do more to ensure ambulance staff had better working conditions and more resources to help those who were struggling.

Tory mental health spokeswoman Annie Wells said: “Ambulance staff do a great job looking after us when we need them. It’s clearly time for that favour to be returned, because it’s in no-one’s interests for increasing numbers of Scottish Ambulance Service workers to be off with these very serious problems.

“This is where the SNP government has to step in and ensure not only that the organisation has enough resources to make the job bearable, but also to provide support for those who need it.

“These statistics show there is a worsening problem within the ambulance service, and it cannot be allowed to continue.”

Paramedics

are under increasing pressure, with turnaround times at hospitals increasing and frequent verbal and physical assaults while they are out on emergency calls.

It was reported yesterday in our sister paper the Edinburgh Evening News that hospital workers who found a motorist slumped at the wheel of his car at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary drove him to A&E themselves after being told to wait 45 minutes for an ambulance.

A Scottish Ambulance Service spokesperson said: “Our staff not only have to cope with stressful situations at work, they also have to deal with the stresses of everyday life – despite these pressures they do a fantastic job caring for patients, which is why we are determined to do all we can to help them.

“There are a number of initiatives – the RUOK campaign and our TRIM Trauma Risk Management initiative – which help to identify when staff are stressed, support them and, with TRIM, provide peer-led support for staff who have experienced a traumatic event.

“We also provide counselling and occupational health services and we’re continuously looking to improve the support we provide – to that end we’ve expanded our resources, for example, by providing more training for managers.”