HUNDREDS of ambulance journeys for patients are being cancelled every week as a result of rising demand and staff shortages.
An average of 44 journeys by the Patient Transport Service (PTS) are cancelled by the ambulance service every day in Scotland. PTS journeys are used when patients need help getting to hospital for non-emergencies. The figures do not include journeys cancelled by the patient.
In the year to May, the latest month for which figures are available, more than 16,000 journeys were cancelled. The previous year’s number was 21,000, but it compares to the 2014/15 total of just 10,000.
Of the 16,065 journeys cancelled last year, 4,296 were cancelled on the day of the planned journey. The Scottish Ambulance Service said: “In the last year, the service successfully undertook almost 780,000 patient transport journeys, ensuring patients were able to attend their hospital appointments and return home or to their place of care.
“We understand how important it is for patients to attend their appointments and do all we can to make sure we do not have to cancel journeys.
“A cancellation can occur when demand exceeds available resources, when there is an unexpected staff absence, or when specialist equipment is unavailable.
“We are currently recruiting and training 59 Ambulance Care Assistants to fill vacancies across the country that we expect will reduce the number of cancellations. We are also reviewing the shift patterns of our patient transport service staff to ensure we are maximising the availability of our resources.”
Miles Briggs, health spokesman for the Scottish Conservatives, who made the freedom of information request that revealed the figures, said: “Ambulance workers are doing their best to ensure vulnerable patients can get to hospital on time. But demand is far outstripping supply, and this is just another example of the SNP Government failing to plan for the future.”
A Scottish Government spokesman said: “We would expect the ambulance service to strive to transport all clinically appropriate patients to their hospital appointments and, where this is not possible, patients should be signposted to alternative transport providers to ensure they can make their appointment.
“The Scottish Government has invested an additional £6.3 million in the ambulance service for 2017/18 to help the service deliver its Towards 2020 Strategy. This includes the recruitment of additional staff, including ambulance care assistants who provide the patient transport service.”
Meanwhile, an investigation into ambulances in Tayside also showed resources are stretched to the limit, with patients waiting up two hours for treatment in life-threatening cases. The ambulance service aims to attend 75 per cent of category A calls – where a patient may be in an “immediately life-threatening” situation – in just eight minutes. But the figures reveal targets are being missed by significant lengths of time in Tayside and Fife.
Jamie McNamee, national convener for Unite and a paramedic, said: “Unite is very concerned at the continually increasing demands on SAS staff.
“We are working in partnership with executives at SAS to try to secure additional funding to increase our response levels in all areas including Tayside and Fife.”
A Government spokesman said: “Despite increasing demand, our crews are saving more lives than ever before. We are focused on improving clinical outcomes and ensuring the right resource is sent to patients.
“The Government has invested in the service for 2017/18 to deliver its commitment to train 1,000 more paramedics.”
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