LAST WEEK Unite Scotland revealed the details of a survey conducted of nearly 300 Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS) workers, which has profound and devastating implications for our nation’s health services.

The survey reveals a horrifying picture of Scotland’s ambulance service, despite the heroic efforts of staff, due to years of chronic underfunding and the current pressures being placed on the system due to the pandemic.

The situation has, of course, been exacerbated by Covid but the issues regarding investment, hospital capacity, beds and personnel levels pre-date it.

In April this year it was released by the Institute of Fiscal Studies that Scottish health spending per person is currently only 3 per cent higher than in England, compared with 22 per cent at the start of devolution. By any standards that’s dramatic, successive cuts in funding.

The survey reveals that by huge majorities Scottish Ambulance Service workers feel under-valued, fatigued and that staff morale has collapsed, alongside the vast majority of workers stating the nation’s ambulance service is under-resourced and understaffed.

Substantial majorities of workers also state that they have considered leaving the ambulance service and reported that they have been abused at work in the last year.

The headline survey findings reveal:

• 98.2 per cent believe that Scottish government’s extra investment of £20m into the SAS and support from the armed services will “not be enough” during the winter months
• 86.7 per cent of SAS workers felt that staff morale was either poor (30.8 per cent) or very poor (55.9 per cent)
• 86.4 per cent feel fatigued at work while 78.9 per cent believe the SAS is understaffed
• 81.5 per cent have suffered verbal or physical abuse, or both, while working at the SAS within the last year
• 70 per cent do not get the necessary break times during shifts

Unite has previously called for a “major incident” status to be declared at all hospitals with accident and emergency units where turnaround times exceed 30 minutes.  

The demand was made to protect the public who have made 999 calls in the community, amid patient safety concerns due to 6 hours service running times.

On average, an ambulance response to a 999 call can take between 55 minutes and 1 hour and 10 minutes, from call to completion. However, ambulances are now missing three 999 calls while located at a hospital waiting for patient handovers.  

The survey findings shed new light on this depressing situation with nearly 71 per cent of respondents declaring that the longest 999 call they have been involved in from call to completion exceeded six hours: (16.3 per cent — over 20 hours; 11.7 per cent between 15-20 hours; 6.3 per cent between 12-15 hours; 4.6 per cent between 10-12 hours; 5.4 per cent between 8-10 hours and 26.4 per cent between 6-8 hours) with the remainder being under six hours.

Worryingly, 94.5 per cent of survey respondents involved in ambulance 999 call-outs believed the clinical coding to ascertain the severity of the situation was wrong.

In addition, 54.7 per cent answered “yes” to being involved in an adverse clinical event, which is essentially a fatality or a life-altering situation like a stroke, due to longer service running times because of delays and hospital pressures.  

There has been a significant rise in what is termed “adverse events” recorded across Scotland where the time taken to reach the actual patient is part of the incident.

Crucially, the number of these events recorded as being directly due to an ambulance delay has increased by four times between 2018 and 2021.

Let’s keep to the forefront of our minds that behind every figure there are human beings who have been involved in these situations.

Unite has repeatedly warned the Scottish government’s Health Secretary, Humza Yousaf, that the extra investment and resources for the Scottish Ambulance Service would “not be enough” to deal with the crises affecting the nation’s health services during winter. Our survey findings conclusively confirm this belief.

It is a devastating indictment of the Scottish government’s approach to the ambulance service and indeed our health services in general. Urgent action is necessary because lives are at risk alongside the fundamental issue of how we value those trying to save those lives.