To ask the Scottish Government what action it will take in light of reports that some people are waiting 10 hours for an ambulance. (S6T-02733)

It is not acceptable that some people are waiting for extended periods of time for an ambulance. Officials continue to hold regular strategic meetings with the Scottish Ambulance Service to help it to manage system pressures. The Scottish Ambulance Service is actively engaging with boards at chief executive and senior management level to ensure that they implement measures to reduce delays.

It is important to consider that ambulance crews responded to 547 life-threatening incidents during the week of 20 October, achieving a median response time of eight minutes and 20 seconds.

Our support for the Scottish Ambulance Service has led to a record increase in staffing, with new staff including newly qualified paramedics, patient transport service staff and control staff.

Last week, a footballer with a suspected dislocated knee, who had been playing in a championship match, was left waiting for an ambulance for 10 hours. A month earlier, another footballer waited for five hours after suffering a double leg break. At the time, the First Minister described that wait as an “error”, but now it looks as though it was not a one-off but a repeated problem.

Those are just two examples of the thousands of Scots who are left waiting because the Scottish Ambulance Service is struggling to meet demand. Ambulances are stuck waiting at the front doors of hospitals for more than an hour to discharge patients, which means that they are unavailable to take other calls. What is the Cabinet secretary doing about that particular problem to reduce long waits for ambulances?

There are a number of points in Jackie Baillie’s question that I wish to cover. She is correct to point to the case of Charlie Fox’s suspected dislocated knee. Having suffered a knee dislocation 20 years ago, I recognise the trauma and pain that he will have been suffering, which makes the delay even more difficult to understand.

Off the back of the other case that Jackie Baillie referred to—the case of Brooke Paterson, in October—we commissioned the Scottish Ambulance Service to undertake a review of the management of traumatic fractures of patients who were injured outside and could not be moved safely. The terms of reference required a full review of the management of those incidents in the past six months and the triage protocol for them, taking into account the escalation measures in times of higher demand, the capacity of the Scottish Ambulance Service’s integrated clinical hub to review a larger proportion of 999 calls and the processes for identifying patients who are outdoors on the ambulance control systems.

Jackie Baillie is correct to say that turnaround times are affected by the pressures on hospitals. We know about some of the sites where particular challenges exist. Through the use of flow navigation centres and other triage work, work is being done to relieve the pressure on the Scottish Ambulance Service and hospitals. Jackie Baillie will also be aware of the work that is being done with local partners to reduce delayed discharge, so that more people can move back into their homes and be treated there in the longer term through the likes of the hospital at home work.

I am glad that the Cabinet secretary acknowledges that there is a problem. In 2014, one in every 100 ambulances spent an hour stuck on a hospital forecourt. By 2025—this year—the figure was one in three. This week, 2,007 Scots waited for more than 12 hours in accident and emergency departments, and we are not properly in winter yet.

At the weekend, former Scottish Government health secretary Jeane Freeman said that the Scottish National Party Government has failed to listen to NHS staff. That is why it is getting it so wrong. Does the Minister agree, or is Jeane Freeman wrong?

No. I will come back to the points that Jeane Freeman raised shortly. The pressures that we are facing in our hospitals are not unique to Scotland. They are pressures that all health systems across the United Kingdom have faced since Covid. Indeed, the deterioration of ambulance response times in England demonstrates the pressure that there is on all parts of the system. [Interruption.]

I can hear Jackie Baillie chuntering away, but the category 1 and category 2 ambulance response times in England in September were the slowest since February 2025, and the category 3 and category 4 response times were the slowest since December 2024. The point that I am making is that that does not excuse the situation that we are facing in Scotland—far from it. The decisions that we are making mean that we are in the best possible position to respond.

I want to ensure that the review that we have commissioned from the Scottish Ambulance Service to ensure that those types of incidents are responded to properly is acted on as quickly as possible. The outcome of the review and the collaboration with the senior management team at SAS is happening now. An urgent implementation plan will be agreed and monitored to ensure that we can respond to the concerns that Jackie Baillie has raised.

I remind members that I am employed as a bank nurse by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.

I thank our incredibly hard-working staff and my colleagues in the NHS and the Scottish Ambulance Service, who are working day in and day out to reduce delays and bring down waiting times. I am sure that Jackie Baillie will welcome the recent statistics that show that waiting times are coming down in Scotland. How will the First Minister’s announcement yesterday of additional funding for nine health boards further help with that?

First, I thank Clare Haughey for acknowledging the incredible efforts that are being made by our staff. In this case, the focus is on our ambulance staff, who operate in incredibly challenging situations and to whom I am incredibly grateful.

Secondly, we are seeing increased activity rates. We can see that from the statistics that have come out today on cancelled operations. We have seen a 4 per cent year-on-year increase in the number of operations that are being performed and planned. We have seen activity rates go up, and waiting times—the longest waits—are coming down. Again, that is in contrast to what is happening in other parts of the United Kingdom.

The £25.5 million funding increase that was announced on Monday brings our total additional investment in reducing waiting times to £135.5 million this year. That is dedicated funding as part of the record £21.7 billion that has been invested in our national health service. I point out that that was investment that the Labour Party could not support.

I declare an interest as a practising NHS general practitioner and a previous head of medicine for Queen’s Park.

Queen’s Park defender Charlie Fox suffered a serious knee injury during a championship game that could have resulted in an unnecessary amputation. He was forced to wait for 10 hours, which is the equivalent of almost seven football matches. In some areas, patients are waiting even longer than that. We know that, in the past year, one code red patient in the Highlands waited for more than 18 hours for an ambulance, while another in Lothian waited for almost 17 hours. The median wait is of cold comfort to those patients.

Our paramedics do a brilliant job, but they are left to do it with one hand tied behind their back. There are also home-grown student paramedics who are not getting jobs in Scotland. When will the Government put a proper focus on workforce planning and prioritise getting resources to the front line and away from bureaucracy?

We have already done that. As I did in response to Jackie Baillie’s question, I apologise to Charlie Fox for the situation that he faced. I recognise the pain and trauma that he will have suffered while he was waiting. I am expecting the Scottish Ambulance Service to carry out a full investigation into what happened in that incident. When the time is right for Mr Fox, I would encourage him to engage with the Ambulance Service to ensure that the investigation can be done in the most informed way possible.

I have already set out, in response to Jackie Baillie, the work that we have commissioned the Ambulance Service to do to review the management of traumatic fractures, to ensure that such incidents—or, indeed, dislocations, which we have heard about—are able to be responded to properly and timeously.

We have invested significantly in Ambulance Service staffing and that has led to a record increase in staffing, including for newly qualified paramedics. I am obviously aware of the situation for some, and I am working with the Ambulance Service to ensure that, where a newly qualified paramedic’s number 1 geographical area is not available, we can at least support people to understand where the vacancies are and can match them up to those newly qualified paramedics.

The stacking of ambulances outside our A and E departments and the long, protracted waits inside A and E are not a result of a deficiency in emergency care. Instead, they are a result of the fact that, on any given night in Scotland, 2,000 Scots are stuck in hospital who are well enough to go home but too frail to do so without either a care bed or a care package to receive them into the community. That is because this Government has failed on social care.

Does the Cabinet secretary recognise that the situation in our communities is getting worse, particularly in the Highlands, which is seeing care homes close? Will he instruct an urgent inquiry into all preventable deaths caused as a result of the crisis in emergency care?

I share Alex Cole-Hamilton’s assessment of some of the challenges that are being faced around the delays that are being suffered by people who need to use the Ambulance Service and, indeed, by people in accident and emergency.

There is an issue with flow through the system, which is why we are bolstering general practice through the investment that we are making there to support more people in primary care. That is also why we have invested record levels in social care, going beyond our previous commitments to invest in social care to the tune of £2.2 billion.

I recognise that there is significant demand on social care. That is why it is so important that, in addition, work is being done to expand hospital at home services to support people in their own homes for longer, including for people who have such an acuity of need that it is a challenge to meet their social care needs. I look forward to the discussion that we are about to have in 15 minutes, when we can discuss more of these issues, as we do regularly.

That concludes topical Question Time. I apologise to those members I was unable to fit in.