Ambulance crews were placed on red alert last week as A&Es were mobbed and services threatened to buckle under pressure, the Record can reveal. Emergency measures were triggered as patients spent waits of up to 12 hours in ambulances queuing outside accident and emergency departments across Scotland.
The “Level 4” status – the highest possible state of alert – means managers can cancel staff leave and deploy all available workers to the frontline. Labour slammed Health Secretary Neil Gray over the crisis as health spokeswoman Jackie Baillie hit out: “Yet again, Scotland’s ambulance service has been plunged into winter chaos due to the lack of planning and support from the SNP.
“That lives are being endangered and staff are having to cancel leave at Christmas is intolerable. Neil Gray needs to put down the selection box and get back to work.”
Details of the alarming strain placed on our hospitals in the week before Christmas have now emerged – with GMB union insiders fearing it’s only the start of a looming winter crisis. Bosses at the Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS) put managers on the highest level of alert on Monday, December 16, as waits to get into A&Es grew, the Record has learned.
The Resource Escalation Action Plan (REAP) was moved to red alert Level 4, giving managers the option of emergency measures such as asking staff to cancel annual leave and transferring all trained workers to frontline duties to deal with the crisis. Karen Leonard, GMB Scotland organiser in the ambulance service, said crews are reporting lengthening waits and expect things to get far worse.
She said: “We are being told it is exceptionally bad for this time of year. Crews across the country are reporting the kind of waits not normally seen until after Christmas. This is unusual and alarming.
“One patient waiting to be admitted to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary spent 12 hours in a vehicle outside A&E last week, for example. This is a hospital where crews do not routinely report such long delays handing over patients and certainly not this early in the winter.
“Our members are worried and fear this winter could be far more difficult than anyone expected. They are already exhausted but are being asked to work through breaks and end of shifts knowing things are likely to get even worse.”
Leonard said the NHS Scotland winter plan is intended to ensure services cope with volatility but is already “stretched to breaking point”. She added: “The emergency plan seems to have been based on wishful thinking and blind optimism.
“We seem to have planned for the best case scenario instead of the worst and were enduring the kind of conditions in August and September that were being expected in January and February. These emergency blueprints must now be urgently reviewed and retooled to address what our members fear will become a crisis when the weather worsens.”
Logjams outside A&Es have become more common in recent years, with paramedics forced to spend ever longer caring for patients while waiting for beds to open up inside, the GMB chief explained. Leonard said: “It is not good for patients and it is frustrating for crews who should be out on calls but are instead queuing for hours in hospital carparks.
“Winter is never easy but it is worrying that our members are sounding the alarm so loudly and so early.” The Record has reported over the last three years and more on the crisis facing overworked and understaffed Scots ambulance workers. We told in September how ambulance chiefs had forked out more than £160,000 in a year on taxis to get patients to hospital amid pressures on their fleet.
The SAS conceded crews had faced “significant pressure” over the last week, driven in part by a rise in respiratory viruses. A spokesman said: “We are working with health boards to do everything we can to get our crews back on the road to help patients.
“Our staff are working extremely hard and we continue to prioritise those patients who are most critically ill. For those patients who are not critically ill, they may have to wait longer for an ambulance than usual and we thank the public for their patience – we will try to get to them as quickly as we can.
“We are doing everything we can to support our amazing staff during this period and the public can play their part in this too. We would like to remind people that if you need urgent care, but it’s not life-threatening, you can visit NHS Inform online, call NHS 24 on 111, day or night, or your GP during opening hours.”
He added: “At no point have the GMB attempted to raise concerns about the winter plan or welfare provision with SAS, and until now, they supported the additional efforts made to support staff welfare and capacity.”
A spokesman for the Scottish Government said: “Patient safety remains our top priority. The Scottish Ambulance Service has implemented a Level 4 Resource Escalation Action Plan to ensure that all available resources are used to respond to 999 calls.
“Despite continued increased levels of high priority calls, crews responded to 514 of the highest priority calls across Scotland last week in an average time of seven minutes 41 seconds.
“The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that there are no unnecessary delays in transferring patients to hospital and we continue to work closely with Health Boards and the SAS, to maintain a fast response to the most critically unwell.
“We continue to invest in supporting SAS staff and patients, recruiting an additional 1388 staff since 2020, with further recruitment underway this year.”
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