Army drivers brought in to help solve the ambulance crisis cannot “blue light” seriously ill patients to hospital, the Record can reveal.
A Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS) memo – leaked to this paper – highlighted the problem, telling staff that Army helpers “are not emergency drivers and cannot drive on blue lights”.
The problems with the drivers have been confirmed by paramedics trade union Unite just days after they were brought in by Health Secretary Humza Yousaf as waiting times soared.
Paramedics have also warned bringing in the military has actually increased waiting times at some hospitals – as Army drivers drop off large numbers of non-emergency patients at hard-pressed A&Es.
Paramedics also fear patients could be put at “severe clinical risk” as a result of Army drivers being unable to use blue lights.
Last night, Unite’s convener at the SAS Jamie McNamee said: “These drivers can only be sent to non-emergency calls where otherwise patients may be waiting seven or eight hours for a response. But that puts them in the frontline.
"And when they get to the call, things may be different than they expect. It could be they are called out to someone with a severe asthma attack but when they arrive, a clinician realises the patient is having a heart attack.
“In that situation, it is a blue light to the nearest hospital – but the military driver can’t do it because he can’t drive with a blue light and the clinician can’t drive because he needs to remain in the back with the patient.
“He will have to drive without blue light or call another ambulance – which defeats the whole purpose.”
He added: “It doesn’t matter how many extra ambulances we have on the road, unless they deal with patient flow at hospitals, we are just going to be sitting in an even bigger queue to get into accident and emergency.
“If there are 50 more ambulances, it just means 50 extra joining the queue. They need to get more beds. The Government has admitted they are 1000 beds short and that’s the nub of everything.”
Figures released yesterday by Public Health Scotland showed a drop of 330 beds last year and a total loss of of 969 beds since 2016. There were 12,869 staffed beds available on average each day last year, a 9.5 per cent decrease from the 14,227 per day in 2011-12.
McNamee added: “We need the Army to establish field hospitals or temporary admission wards, not for ambulance drivers.”
Unite had expected Army medics to set up the field hospitals to enable ambulance staff to deliver patients quickly instead of sitting in a bottleneck for hours to deliver one patient.
The Army began working with the SAS on Sunday but McNamee added: “There is no evidence so far that it has made any difference.”
Last night Labour’s health spokeswoman Jackie Baillie said: “It is absolutely vital that the Army is deployed in the most effective way possible. We cannot have even longer waits for ambulances and A&E.
“It’s high time that the SNP listened to frontline staff and their unions to learn how best to utilise the help of the Army. Field hospitals are essential to ensure the people of Scotland are able to receive the care they deserve.”
An SAS spokeswoman said: “Although the military personnel are primarily focused on our lower acuity emergency and timed admissions calls, for example falls, they can be sent to all categories of emergency call.
“If deployed to an emergency, the trained clinician can drive to the scene on blue lights, with the military driver driving to hospital with the patient on board under normal road conditions.
“If there is the need to transport the patient to hospital under emergency ‘blue light’ conditions, then the crew will request back up.”
A Scottish Government spokesman said: “Military personnel will have an important role to play in lower acuity emergency calls – and their deployment will help improve overall response times and increase capacity.
“It will also free up existing SAS clinicians to be available for more immediately life-threatening calls – as well as helping to reduce workload and wellbeing pressures on SAS crews.
“We have set out a £20million package of additional support for the service. We’re working closely with SAS and health boards to ensure ambulances are cleared from hospitals as quickly as possible, including the establishment of temporary admissions wards to ease pressure on A&Es.”
