NHS Lothians patient forced to wait up to two days for an ambulance, Scottish Conservative figures show

A patient was forced to wait up to two days for an ambulance to arrive in the Lothians earlier this year, according to Freedom of Information figures from the Scottish Conservatives.

Data obtained by the Scottish Conservatives shows that a yellow category patient in Lothian waited 48 hours for an ambulance in May 2024, while an amber category patient in Grampian faced a 22-hour delay in February.

Another patient in Ayrshire and Arran waited 32 hours, 43 minutes and 23 seconds in February 2024.

Yellow category callouts are defined by the Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS) as ‘a patient who has a need for care but has a very low likelihood of requiring life-saving interventions. For example, patients who have tripped or fallen but not sustained any serious injury’.

Meanwhile, a purple category patient – those whose lives are deemed most at risk – in Glasgow was forced to wait well over four hours before an ambulance arrived in February this year.

Scottish Conservatives have branded ambulance delays “life-threatening” and “a crisis.”

Scottish Conservative shadow health secretary Dr Sandesh Gulhane MSP said: “It is disgraceful that patients, including some fighting for their lives, are waiting so long for an ambulance to arrive.

“Despite the best efforts of dedicated paramedics, patients are being failed by SNP ministers who are too stuck in their Holyrood bubble to fully appreciate the scale of this crisis.

“These unacceptable figures are terrifying because we know that lives are needlessly lost because of excessive waits for ambulances to arrive.

“The brutal combination of the SNP’s dreadful workforce planning and their failure to tackle ambulance stacking has caused this crisis.

“But Neil Gray still doesn’t have a plan to fix it and, unless and until he addresses delayed discharge in hospitals, he can never hope to do so.

“In contrast, the Scottish Conservatives have a common-sense plan to address this situation by scaling up temporary capacity, which would ensure there is always bed capacity and reduce ambulance turnaround times.”

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “Despite continued increased levels of demand, and the unique geographical challenges posed in some of Scotland’s most rural areas, our ambulance crews responded to 442 of the most critical incidents across Scotland last week in a median time of 7 minutes 14 seconds.

“We continue to work closely with Boards and the Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS) to ensure there are no unnecessary delays in transferring patients to hospital and emergencies are responded to urgently.

“This includes continued investment in the SAS workforce, with 1,388 additional staff recruited since 2020, and further recruitment underway this year.”