Chamber
Meeting of the Parliament 15 September 2010
15 Sep 2010 · S3 · Meeting of the Parliament
Item of business
Scottish Ambulance Service Call Handling
I thank the cabinet secretary for her statement and join her in thanking the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service and the North West Ambulance Service for their assistance on 21 July.
The cabinet secretary will agree that it is unprecedented for Scotland’s three ambulance centres to go down simultaneously. At the time, she said that there was no impact on patient care. As she admits in her statement, though, there clearly was an impact—as I will illustrate with the experience of two of my constituents.
The first constituent is Mandy Sweeney, whose father called 999 for an ambulance because she was in excruciating pain. He had to call back 50 minutes later and, in total, it took an hour and 15 minutes for an ambulance to finally arrive. The second constituent was an elderly lady who fell and hit her head on the pavement. It is unclear whether she lost consciousness, which surely made the call a category A one. She waited 45 minutes; the ambulance had to be called again and, in total, it took a total of an hour and a half to arrive.
It is clear that the cabinet secretary has not described the total delay experience. Instead, she has noted only the delay in passing information from Northern Ireland to Scotland, although there was evidently a further delay in the arrival of ambulances at their destinations. Will she provide that fuller information?
The cabinet secretary also mentioned that there were no adverse outcomes, other than those that we would normally expect, for the 125 patients who were affected by use of the buddy system. However, can she say whether there were any adverse outcomes at all for those 125 patients?
My final questions are on transparency. The cabinet secretary has made a 10-minute statement with not one mention of why she did not tell us about the matter. The Scottish Government is not normally known to be reticent when it comes to press releases, so why did I need to go to Belfast to find out what is happening in Scotland? Why did I need to rely on the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service for information and not the Scottish Ambulance Service? Who took the decision not to tell the public? Was it the cabinet secretary, the Scottish Ambulance Service or both? Cabinet secretary—why the big secret?
The cabinet secretary will agree that it is unprecedented for Scotland’s three ambulance centres to go down simultaneously. At the time, she said that there was no impact on patient care. As she admits in her statement, though, there clearly was an impact—as I will illustrate with the experience of two of my constituents.
The first constituent is Mandy Sweeney, whose father called 999 for an ambulance because she was in excruciating pain. He had to call back 50 minutes later and, in total, it took an hour and 15 minutes for an ambulance to finally arrive. The second constituent was an elderly lady who fell and hit her head on the pavement. It is unclear whether she lost consciousness, which surely made the call a category A one. She waited 45 minutes; the ambulance had to be called again and, in total, it took a total of an hour and a half to arrive.
It is clear that the cabinet secretary has not described the total delay experience. Instead, she has noted only the delay in passing information from Northern Ireland to Scotland, although there was evidently a further delay in the arrival of ambulances at their destinations. Will she provide that fuller information?
The cabinet secretary also mentioned that there were no adverse outcomes, other than those that we would normally expect, for the 125 patients who were affected by use of the buddy system. However, can she say whether there were any adverse outcomes at all for those 125 patients?
My final questions are on transparency. The cabinet secretary has made a 10-minute statement with not one mention of why she did not tell us about the matter. The Scottish Government is not normally known to be reticent when it comes to press releases, so why did I need to go to Belfast to find out what is happening in Scotland? Why did I need to rely on the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service for information and not the Scottish Ambulance Service? Who took the decision not to tell the public? Was it the cabinet secretary, the Scottish Ambulance Service or both? Cabinet secretary—why the big secret?
In the same item of business
The Presiding Officer (Alex Fergusson)
NPA
The next item of business is a statement by Nicola Sturgeon on Scottish Ambulance Service call handling. The cabinet secretary will take questions at the end...
The Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing (Nicola Sturgeon)
SNP
I welcome the opportunity to make a statement to Parliament on the telephony problems that the Scottish Ambulance Service experienced on Wednesday 21 July. I...
The Presiding Officer
NPA
The cabinet secretary will now take questions on the issues that have been raised in her statement. We have no more than 20 minutes for such questions, after...
Jackie Baillie (Dumbarton) (Lab)
Lab
I thank the cabinet secretary for her statement and join her in thanking the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service and the North West Ambulance Service for thei...
Nicola Sturgeon
SNP
Jackie Baillie covered several issues, but I will try to respond to all of them.In relation to the two cases that she mentioned, I am aware of the first of t...
Murdo Fraser (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Con)
Con
I thank the cabinet secretary for providing advance sight of her statement. I welcome her reassurance that there were no adverse outcomes attributable to the...
Nicola Sturgeon
SNP
I echo Murdo Fraser’s comments about the buddy system. I said in my statement that I am grateful for the contributions of both of the other ambulance service...
Ross Finnie (West of Scotland) (LD)
LD
I, too, thank the cabinet secretary for providing an advance copy of her statement.Although we are reassured that the incident did not last for a prolonged p...
Nicola Sturgeon
SNP
I welcome the fact that Ross Finnie is reassured by the operation of the contingency arrangements. Yes—it is important and useful to share the Scottish Ambul...
The Presiding Officer
NPA
We come to open questions. There are seven members and seven minutes; therefore, brevity is the watchword.
Christine Grahame (South of Scotland) (SNP)
SNP
We are forewarned. Does the cabinet secretary have a timescale for the completion of BT’s review of its system resilience? Can she detail any further actions...
Nicola Sturgeon
SNP
I outlined in my statement some of the actions that had already been taken as a result of the BT investigation, which include the upgrade of systems and the ...
Dr Richard Simpson (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Lab)
Lab
The cabinet secretary has not really explained why she had to be asked for a statement rather than going public on this issue. The 24 duplicate calls reflect...
Nicola Sturgeon
SNP
All the cases have been clinically audited. As Richard Simpson will appreciate, I have given some statistics for the delays that were associated with the cal...
Michael Matheson (Falkirk West) (SNP)
SNP
The cabinet secretary outlined that there were, in the course of using the buddy system, some delays in information being passed back to the Scottish Ambulan...
Nicola Sturgeon
SNP
I am grateful to Michael Matheson for raising an important aspect of this matter. I am reluctant to anticipate and pre-empt the specific recommendations that...
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
LD
As we have heard, it all started in Inverness, where the system went down for nearly 14 hours. Can the cabinet secretary tell me—possibly in due course—why t...
Nicola Sturgeon
SNP
It is certainly not my understanding that the problem was down to old equipment. There was an issue with the systems, which is why systems upgrades have been...
Maureen Watt (North East Scotland) (SNP)
SNP
The cabinet secretary said that the disruption spread from Inverness to Glasgow through the connection between the systems. Will the review look into whether...
Nicola Sturgeon
SNP
I am sure that the investigation will cover all such matters. As I said in response to Michael Matheson, it would not be helpful to pre-empt some of the inve...
Johann Lamont (Glasgow Pollok) (Lab)
Lab
I was stunned to discover on a visit to Northern Ireland on 11 August that the serious systems failure had occurred. I am even more stunned now to discover t...
Nicola Sturgeon
SNP
I say to Johann Lamont in all sincerity that I reflect carefully on all such incidents and on everything that is said in the chamber by members from across t...
Nigel Don (North East Scotland) (SNP)
SNP
I am reassured because the system’s resilience was as good as it was. I am sure that that reassures the cabinet secretary, too. Will she consider reviewing t...
The Presiding Officer
NPA
Please answer as briefly as you can.
Nicola Sturgeon
SNP
I am happy to meet Nigel Don to discuss any concerns that he has about the operation of NHS 24. It is important to stress that NHS 24 was not affected by the...