Call for inquiry as ambulance wait times for critically ill rise
Ambulance waiting times for patients categorised as “critically ill” increased in almost every Scottish local authority over a five-year period, figures have revealed.
The Scottish Liberal Democrats have demanded an inquiry into avoidable deaths caused by lengthy blue light waits.
Between 2019 and 2023, the Scottish Ambulance Service’s response times to purple calls – where patients are identified as having a 10 per cent or more chance of having a cardiac arrest – increased in every local authority area except Shetland, Freedom of Information figures obtained by the party revealed.
The cardiac arrest rate in this category is about 53 per cent.
A patient in Glasgow waited two hours and one minute for a response to a critical call last year – the highest of the year – followed by Aberdeen City with one hour and 54 minutes.
Over the same time period, 28 local authorities experienced an increase in average waiting times for red calls – the second most serious category. Red calls are categorised when a patient has between a 1 per cent and 9.9 per cent likelihood of cardiac arrest, or having a need for resuscitation interventions.
A Highland patient waited eight hours and 58 minutes for a response in this category, followed by eight hours and 55 minutes in Aberdeen.
Red level waits did not increase in Edinburgh, Midlothian, West Dunbartonshire and West Lothian.
The longest waiting time for any call, which includes less serious amber and yellow categories, was 1,066 minutes, or 17 hours, in 2023.
Mr Cole-hamilton said: “If you call an ambulance at a moment of crisis, you want to know that someone will be there in time to help you as best they can. Tragically, this is simply not happening for so many people across Scotland.
“It is extremely worrying that high-risk callers in particular have had to wait more than an hour for help. The SNP continuously ignored ambulance staff, who have been warning of pressure cooker conditions for years. Their refusal to listen has caused intolerable pain for patients and put staff under extreme pressure.
“Scottish Liberal Democrats will continue to call for an inquiry into the hundreds of avoidable deaths linked to emergency care crisis, something which has been obstructed by nationalist MSPS who did not want to know.”
Mr Cole-hamilton said health secretary Neil Gray must “recognise the pressures the service is under and look again at what needs to be done to improve life for both patients and staff ”.
“Swift action could make all the difference between life and death,” he said.
Opposition parties have persistently claimed Scotland’s emergency departments are in “permanent crisis mode”, with last week’s figures showing more than a third of people waited more than four hours to be seen. Figures released by Public Health Scotland last week showed 65.3 per cent of people who went to accident and emergency in the week up to May 5 were seen within the four-hour target time.
If you call an ambulance at a moment of crisis, you want to know that someone will be there in time