Government apology after ambulances backed up outside A&E for 15 hours

Shona Robison has apologised after shocking ambulance waiting times were revealed – including up to an hour waits for life-threatening calls

Ambulances are queuing up outside Scottish A&E departments - including one which had to wait 15 hours in Ayrshire. Image: James Manning/Press Association.

Deputy First Minister Shona Robison has apologised for patients having to wait up to 15 hours in the back of ambulances outside hospitals.

Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross challenged her on the “crisis” facing Scotland’s NHS, saying one ambulance was left waiting outside A&E in Ayrshire for 15 hours.

He also said response times for purple calls, the most life-threatening, can be as high as an hour - the target time is just six minutes.

Ambulance responses are divided into four different categories, with purple being for the “most critically ill patients” - around 53 per cent of these calls are for someone who is having a cardiac arrest.

This comes after a BBC investigation found one in 10 ambulances are waiting for almost two hours outside A&E departments in the week up to 4 December.

At one point in their investigation they found 14 ambulances queuing up outside Edinburgh Royal Infirmary’s A&E.

Mr Ross also says there was one ambulance waiting over 10 hours outside a hospital in NHS Grampian, and another waiting more than 11 hours in NHS Lothian.

He said: “That means in just one week, 700 ambulances across the country were stuck outside hospitals for hours.”

Ms Robison apologised for the unacceptable waits.

She was drafted in to lead first minister’s questions at the last minute, as Humza Yousaf was at home unwell.

The Deputy First Minister said: “We continue to experience challenges with waiting times at a number of hospitals.

“Some ambulances are taking longer than they should to turn around, but there are similar pressures felt throughout the UK as we enter the winter period.

“Patient safety remains our top priority and I apologise to anyone waiting for ambulances to reach them or are having to wait at A&E.”

She added the government has given the Scottish Ambulance Service an extra £50 million to help with this winter.

Ms Robison said: “Ambulance staff is up 50 per cent under this government and we have record levels of investment in our health service, including in our ambulance service.

“The investment that has been made in our ambulance service and in our health service is absolutely not down to any of the resources that are being given to us by the UK Government.”

She added: “I have it in black and white that next year all the money that is coming from the UK Government for health amounts to £10.8m - that’s enough for five hours’ capacity in the NHS.”

However Conservative MSP Douglas Lumsden says this is not a new issue for winter.

Earlier this year the North East MSP’s father was stuck for six hours in an ambulance outside Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.

Speaking to The Scotsman after first minister’s questions, Mr Lumsden said: “In March this year I went up to his house and he was totally immobile.

“I phoned the doctor and an ambulance came pretty quickly.

“My mum went with him and I went straight to the hospital to meet him there, but he had to wait over six hours in the back of an ambulance because there was no space in the hospital to move him to.

“During that time he was completely immobile and in a lot of pain.

“The ambulance crew were great and they did as much as they could, but it was a really worrying time.

“But this seems to be the new norm now at NHS Grampian - this has been happening for quite a long time.”

NHS Grampian has been contacted for comment.