A “code red” ambulance patient had to wait longer than six hours for a response, data provided to Scottish Labour shows.

The party requested information on the longest response times for the highest-risk patients during each week of 2023.

The ambulance service’s most serious categories of patients are “code purple” – where risk of cardiac arrest is greater than 10% – and “code red”, where the risk is between 1% and 10%.

During the week beginning March 6, the figures show a code red patient waited more than six hours and 40 minutes for an ambulance.


READ MORE: Ambulance waiting times poll 'not reflective of Scotland'


In the week beginning January 30, a code purple patient waited one hour and 24 minutes.

The target response time for these calls is eight minutes.

The Herald:

Scottish Labour health spokeswoman Jackie Baillie said: “It is scandalous that even patients fighting for their lives can’t count on getting an ambulance quickly.

“Paramedics are doing their best to keep patients safe, but they too are being badly failed by this disastrous SNP Government.

“We had plenty of empty promises from Humza Yousaf when he was health secretary, but this crisis is still endangering lives.

“Michael Matheson must act where his predecessor failed and support our ambulance service before any more lives are put at risk by this chaos.”


READ MORE: 'Truly dreadful': numbers waiting too long in A&E worst since January


The Scottish Ambulance Service has previously said its median response time for the most serious calls is lower than seven minutes and that 30-day survival rates for the most seriously ill patients are at the highest-ever level.

Health Secretary Michael Matheson said: “Our continued increased investment to support the service has seen a record number of additional 1,388 staff join the service since 2020, with plans for over 300 further frontline staff this year.

“Whilst operational matters are the responsibility of the SAS, the FOI clearly states the caution that must be used with these figures as they do not factor in possible grading changes that may occur depending on the patient’s condition.

“A call may start out as yellow, subsequently be upgraded to purple later, but only the total time from the first call received is shown.”