LIVES IN DANGER AS ‘UNACCEPTABLE’ AMBULANCE WAITS RECORDED ON MOST DEADLY CALL-OUTS

SUNDAY 24^TH MARCH

 By Lucy Ashton

Lives are being put in danger across Scotland as ‘unacceptable’ long ambulance waits have been recorded on the deadliest ambulance call outs, Scottish Labour has said today. 

Statistics obtained by Scottish Labour have revealed waits of well over an hour have been recorded for critical purple code call-outs – with one person waiting over two hours to be seen in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. 

The target response time for purple and red calls is eight minutes. 

Purple code call-outs are reserved for the most critically ill patients – with the Scottish Ambulance Service estimating that the actual cardiac arrest rate across this category to be 53%. 

The statistics show long waits including a wait of over two hours in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, a wait of almost two hours in NHS Grampian, a wait of over an hour and a half in NHS Ayrshire and Arran and waits of over an hour in Fife, Highland, Lanarkshire and Tayside. 

At the same time, the reported turnaround times for ambulances arriving at hospitals with patients to the vehicle being ready to respond to a new call are lengthy, dangerous and unacceptable. 

In the University Hospital Ayr, Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary and Glasgow’s flagship Queen Elizabeth University hospital, right, turnaround times of over one day were recorded last year. 

With long waits at A&E continuing to persist, Jackie Baillie is demanding action before lives are lost. 

Scottish Labour health spokesperson Jackie Baillie, pictured left, said: “Purple call-outs are more often than not a matter of life and death – but lives are being put at risk due to unacceptable waits. 

“Paramedics are working tirelessly to save lives across Scotland, but it is clear that our NHS is overheating under this SNP Government. 

“Years of SNP failure to remobilize our NHS, including tackling delayed discharge, and their failure to support primary care and social care services have led our NHS into crisis with more and more patients presenting late and often in emergencies. 

“Neil Gray must wake up to this deadly crisis and act before the situation deteriorates further.”

Longest response times for red and purple calls, as recorded from w/c 02 Jan. 2023 to w/c 01 Jan. 2024: 

 Longest turnaround time by hospital for emergency incidents, as recorded from w/c 02 Jan. 2023 to w/c 01 Jan. 2024: 

Source: Scottish Labour FOI. 

Both purple and red calls still have the historical eight-minute target applied to them: https://dspace.stir.ac.uk/bitstream/1893/28955/2/University%20of%20Stirling%20-%20NCRM%20Evaluation%20Report.pdf 

 Coding system: 

• Cases are coded purple, red, amber, yellow and green. 
• Purple: Our most critically ill patients. This is where a patient is identified as having a 10% or more chance of having a cardiac arrest. The actual cardiac arrest rate across this category is approximately 53%. 
• Red: Our next most serious category where a patient is identified as having a likelihood of cardiac arrest between 1% and 9.9%, or having a need for resuscitation interventions such as airway management above 2%.  

Source: https://www.scottishambulance.com/publications/unscheduled-care-operational-statistics/