Scottish Conservative and Unionist MSP for Central Scotland, Graham Simpson, has raised concerns about the amount of time people are waiting for an ambulance in Lanarkshire.
A Freedom of Information request revealed that 6,433 emergency callers waited more than 120 minutes for an ambulance in 2021-22, compared with around 3,844 in the previous year, 2,205 in 2019-20 and just 669 four years ago.
This represents more an 860% increase in four years.
There was also a massive rise in the number of serious ‘red’ and ‘purple’ incidents – which include heart attacks and strokes – where patients waited over ten minutes for a response since 2018. The target time is eight minutes.
In total, 7,009 critically ill ‘red’ and ‘purple’ patients waited over ten minutes to be seen in 2021-22, 45% of all call outs in the category.
Across the country, the total number of people waiting over two hours for an ambulance has risen by 800% in four years.
Mr Simpson has said that the data shows ambulance wait times are “spiralling out of control”, in a trend that predates the pandemic.
Central Scotland MSP, Graham Simpson said: “This shocking data exposes how ambulance wait times in Lanarkshire have been spiralling out of control since well before the pandemic.
“The SNP has been failing the NHS for years even before the Covid struck – and now our local ambulance service is at breaking point.
“Slow turnaround times and record waits at A&E have left 6,433 residents in Lanarkshire – some of whom will have been critically ill – waiting more than two hours for emergency help to arrive.
“Sadly, these delays inevitably lead to more suffering for patients and, ultimately, avoidable deaths.
“This shameful state of affairs is symptomatic of the interconnected crises that have plagued our NHS for years under successive SNP Health Secretaries – but it cannot be allowed to continue.”
