At the same time as the First Minister was announcing yet another white paper for independence - which was immediately lambasted by experts as lacking economic credibility - the Scottish Government’s failures on the delivery of front line services once again hit the headlines. This time it was ambulance response time.
The latest figures revealed just how much strain is being applied to our essential emergency response services, with ambulances often taking hours to reach casualties in need. In the cases of two patients in the Highlands and Lothian, ambulances took 18 and 17 hours respectively to arrive. Both were ‘code-red’ patients who are those deemed to be at risk of cardiac arrest or may require resuscitation.
The lives of patients are being put at risk by response times that are inadequate because the ambulance service is completely overstretched. In another horrifying case featured in The Times, English relatives who lived 450 miles away reached a patient in Southern Scotland before an ambulance even arrived at the scene. A failure to tackle delayed discharge is leading to ambulances stuck outside hospitals and unable to respond to other emergency calls. NHS Tayside reported their 90th percentile ambulance response time for purple category incidents exceeded the eight-minute target response time by over double.
In September, a constituent approached me about an incident in rural Perthshire when a friend collapsed with a suspected heart attack or seizure. Despite someone phoning for an ambulance immediately and the casualty being considered high priority, no ambulance was forthcoming in anywhere near the time that the patient’s condition warranted. In the end, volunteers decided the best course of action was to drive the casualty directly to hospital, notwithstanding further delays because of incorrect information given over the phone as to where the nearest hospital was.
This is not a criticism of our emergency service workers as our opponents often wish to deflect. Our emergency workers save lives every day in high-pressure situations, and they deserve our overwhelming gratitude for the work that they do. This is a criticism of the Scottish Government which has failed to grasp the crisis which leads to our ambulance crews operating overstretched and far beyond its realistic capabilities. Ambulance crews are increasingly facing issues of low morale as they are frequently taking the flak from frustrated first-responders for response times that are not their fault.
The Scottish Government has presided over a long-term decline in our health service and public confidence is at an all-time low; and little wonder given Scots are not even guaranteed a punctual ambulance in their time of need. The Scottish Conservatives have plans to slash bureaucracy, cut middle management and to prioritise getting resources to the frontline – we will always ensure that taxpayer’s money is spent efficiently to tackle issues like this which Scots really care about.
