Calendar An icon of a desk calendar. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Email An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Google An icon of the Google "G" mark. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Logout An icon representing logout. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Tick An icon of a tick mark. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Quote Mark A opening quote mark. Quote Mark A closing quote mark. Arrow An icon of an arrow. Folder An icon of a paper folder. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Caret An icon of a caret arrow. Clock An icon of a clock face. Close An icon of the an X shape. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Ellipsis An icon of 3 horizontal dots. Envelope An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Home An icon of a house. Instagram An icon of the Instagram logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Menu An icon of 3 horizontal lines. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Rating An icon of a star. Tag An icon of a tag. Twitter An icon of the Twitter logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Information An icon of an information logo. Plus A mathematical 'plus' symbol. Duration An icon indicating Time. Success Tick An icon of a green tick. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Facebook Messenger An icon of the facebook messenger app logo. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Facebook Messenger An icon of the Twitter app logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. WhatsApp Messenger An icon of the Whatsapp messenger app logo. Email An icon of an mail envelope. Copy link A decentered black square over a white square.

Deputy First Minister apologises after Grampian ambulance waited over 10 HOURS at hospital

Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross quizzed the government over lengthy ambulance turnaround times.

Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross quizzed the government over lengthy ambulance turnaround times.

Deputy First Minister Shona Robison has apologised to patients left waiting “too long” for emergency care as it was revealed an ambulance in Grampian spent over 10 hours waiting outside a hospital.

Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross challenged Ms Robison over the “crisis” as he shared the figures uncovered by his party.

The data, released under Freedom of Information legislation, showed that in September 2023 the longest ambulance turnaround time in Grampian was 10 hours and 47 minutes.

It comes after we revealed as many as 17 ambulances were seen queuing up outside the city’s flagship hospital on Saturday.

The lengthy waits are leading to delays in response times as emergency crews are unavailable due to being tied up outside of hospital.

Mr Ross also revealed how patients in the most urgent category are waiting up to 10 times the six-minute target time for an ambulance to get to them.

Ambulance aberdeen royal infirmary hospital
Response times have been delayed. Image; Kami Thomson/DC Thomson.

Mr Ross said about half of patients in this purple category had suffered a cardiac arrest, as he asked Ms Robison: “Why should anyone whose heart has stopped be waiting so long for an ambulance to arrive?”

Ms Robison – who was standing in for Humza Yousaf as he is unwell – said the latest Scottish Ambulance Service figures show the median response time for the most serious category is seven minutes and 32 seconds.

She said: “I accept that is too long, and I accept there will be people waiting outside of those times.”

The deputy first minister conceded ambulances are “taking longer than they should to turn around at the front door of our hospitals”.

“I apologise to anyone who has had to wait too long at A&E”

“Patient safety remains our top priority and I would apologise to anyone who has either experienced any waits for an ambulance to reach them or indeed has had to wait too long at A&E.”

She highlighted that an additional £50 million had been provided to the Scottish Ambulance Service as part of planning to help the NHS prepare for winter.

“Scottish Ambulance Service staffing is up 50% under this Government and we have record levels of investment in our health service, including in our Scottish Ambulance Service.”

However she said “the investment that has been made in our Scottish 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 told MSPs: “I have it in black and white that next year all the money that is coming from the UK Government for health amounts to £10.8 million. That is enough for five hours capacity in the NHS.”

She claimed that as a result, it is a “bit rich for Douglas Ross to come to this chamber talking about the performance of our Scottish Ambulance Service or indeed our health service more generally” when the Conservative UK Government has “singularly failed to provide the funding for our health service”.

Conversation