AMBULANCES spent 900 extra hours in Scotland’s hospitals in a month due to slower turnaround times, figures show.
Scottish Ambulance Service bosses said it was taking more than a minute longer each time paramedics transferred a patient into a hospital.
Board meeting papers show in August 2015 the average ambulance took 25 minutes 19 seconds to leave hospital and respond to a 999 call but this had risen to 26 minutes 43 seconds in August 2016.
Official papers state: “Extrapolated over the course of the whole month, the extra time spent at hospital nationally equates to over 900 additional hours.”
The board said initiatives were taking place to try to improve response times.
Health Secretary Shona Robison said: “SAS has seven hospital liaison officers on site in east central, north, south-west and west central Scotland. They are working closely not only with emergency departments but also with other parts of the healthcare system to improve the flow of patients, smooth arrival times, minimise hospital turnaround times and improve the discharging of patients.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here