High risk patients 'waiting over an hour for an ambulance in Scotland'
The Scottish Liberal Democrats said people ‘can no longer trust that an ambulance will be there on time when they need one’
More than 1,000 higher risk patients have waited longer than an hour for an ambulance in Scotland over the last five years, figures suggest.
A Scottish Liberal Democrat freedom of information request analysed ambulance waiting times since 2020 across all 32 local authorities.
It found that across Scotland, 61 of the most high-risk callers (who are colour-coded purple) waited over an hour for an ambulance between 2020 and 2025, while 29 waited more than 90 minutes.
The purple category covers those who are deemed to be the most critically ill. This is where a patient is identified as having a 10 per cent or more chance of having a cardiac arrest. The actual cardiac arrest rate across this category is approximately 53 per cent.
Meanwhile, 1,512 of those in the second highest-risk category of callers (red) waited more than an hour for an ambulance over the same period, and 548 waited more than 90 minutes.
The Scottish Ambulance Service said longer response times often relate to incidents where a patient’s condition was assessed at a lower category and later upgraded as the situation changed.
Scottish Lib Dem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton said: “Tragically, under the SNP, people can no longer trust that an ambulance will be there on time when they need one.
“On John Swinney’s watch, scores of high-risk callers, with a more than 50 per cent chance of cardiac arrest, have had to wait more than an hour for help.
“Hospitals are full of people who are medically ready to leave but can’t because there are too few care packages and care workers to get them home.
“As well as driving up waits at A&E, it's grinding ambulances to a halt outside emergency departments and holding up first responders, who are struggling to get to people who urgently need their help.
“Scottish Liberal Democrats will fix care to fix the NHS. We want to invest £400 million into care over the next three years to free up bed space in hospitals, bring down nightmarish waits and ensure ambulances get to patients in good time.”
Emma Harper, SNP candidate for Galloway and Dumfries West, said the party was making improvements to Scotland’s NHS.
“Waiting times are down for ten months in a row, operation numbers are up, we have more GPs and GP walk-in centres are opening all over the country – the SNP’s plan for the NHS is working,” she said.
“Of course, there is still much work to be done but under the SNP, we have seen a 62 per cent increase in the number of paramedics working in the Scottish Ambulance Service over the past decade - with an increase of 450 since 2020 alone.
“We have always worked closely with the Lib Dems - with them voting for our last two budgets which have delivered record funding for our NHS under John Swinney.
“We are happy to continue working constructively in the new parliament to drive further improvements in our NHS.”
A spokesperson for the Scottish Ambulance Service said: “Our latest statistics show our median response time for purple calls in six minutes and 22 seconds and for red calls eight minutes 58 seconds across Scotland.
“We measure response times from the moment a caller contacts us, and the longer response times often relate to incidents where the patient’s condition was assessed at a lower category and later upgraded as the condition has changed.”
Polls show the health service is one of the top priorities for voters ahead of the Holyrood election on Thursday, with the SNP also facing criticism over A&E waiting times.
Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, has said he is standing to be first minister to “save the NHS”.
“Our NHS is not safe with John Swinney and the SNP,” he said. “They have left patients waiting in pain, families without answers and staff under unbearable pressure. We have all seen the mess the SNP have made over 20 years, and families across Scotland have paid the price.”
He added: “You’ve given the SNP 20 years, give me five to save our NHS. I’m standing to fix the mess, get the basics right and build a better future for Scotland. My first priority as First Minister will be to put our NHS first by cutting waiting lists, ending the 8am rush for a GP and bringing back the family doctor.”
The SNP, meanwhile, has accused Labour of seeking to “send our NHS backwards”.
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