Ambulance service declared emergency last week
The Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS) declared an emergency last week as it dealt with increased pressures, the Scottish Government has said.
The service increased its resource escalation action plan (Reap) to level four – the highest available, which reportedly could see leave cancelled and call all available staff to the front line.
Fewer ill patients will also be directed towards other treatment options to free up crews, it is understood.
The Daily Record reported on Tuesday that one patient waited for 12 hours in an ambulance outside A&E in Edinburgh as trade unions feared the situation this winter could be worse than expected.
But the Government said the service is still able to urgently treat patients in a critical condition.
A spokesman for the Scottish Government said: “Patient safety remains our top priority.
“The Scottish Ambulance Service has implemented a level four resource escalation action plan to ensure that all available resources are used to respond to 999 calls.
“Despite continued increased levels of high priority calls, crews responded to 514 of the highest priority calls across Scotland last week in an average time of seven minutes 41 seconds.
“The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that there are no unnecessary delays in transferring patients to hospital and we continue to work closely with health boards and the SAS to maintain a fast response to the most critically unwell.
“We continue to invest in supporting SAS staff and patients, recruiting an additional 1,388 staff since 2020, with further recruitment under way this year.”
A spokeswoman for the SAS said: “We have been facing significant pressure on our services over the last week.
“This is directly linked to system-wide pressures such as lengthy hospital handover times at key areas across the country and the significant increase in respiratory viruses.
“We are working with health boards to do everything we can to get our crews back on the road to help patients.
“Our staff are working extremely hard and we continue to prioritise those patients who are most critically ill.
“For those patients who are not critically ill, they may have to wait longer for an ambulance than usual and we thank the public for their patience. We will try to get to them as quickly as we can.
“We are doing everything we can to support our amazing staff during this period and the public can play their part in this too.
“We would like to remind people that if you need urgent care, but it’s not life-threatening, you can visit NHS Inform online, call NHS 24 on 111, day or night, or your GP during opening hours.”
Michelle Carr, the chief officer of acute services at NHS Lothian, said: “Like other Health Boards across Scotland, our A&E departments continue to experience periods of unprecedented demand which impacts patient waiting times.
“Our teams work tirelessly to prioritise the most clinically urgent patients and we would urge the public to continue to support our staff by ensuring they access the right care in the right place.”