40,000 wait more than 2 hours for ambulance

MORE than 40,000 people waited longer than two hours for an ambulance last year amid fears the Scottish service is ‘spiralling out of control’.

Critically ill patients waiting more than ten minutes leapt by 50 per cent. ‘Red’ or ‘purple’ cases – including heart attack and stroke victims – have a target of eight minutes.

Warning the service is at ‘breaking point’, Scottish Tory health spokesman Dr Sandesh Gulhane said delays ‘inevitably lead to more suffering for patients and, ultimately, avoidable deaths’. He added: ‘This shocking data exposes how ambulance wait times have been spiralling out of control.’

A Scottish Ambulance Service spokesman said: ‘Our aim is to continually reduce response times. We’ve recently recruited an extra 540 new front-line staff to help boost our capacity.’

A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘We are determined to ensure the Scottish Ambulance Service has the resources and skilled staff in place to continue to deliver a high-quality service.

‘Patient safety remains our number one priority.’