Hansard

This debate has been a good opportunity for members to pay tribute to Scotland’s emergency services personnel and to put on the record our thanks as parliamentarians for the vital work that they do to keep us all safe. Their vigilance on our behalf and their brave action when lives are in peril are appreciated the length and breadth of this country by communities, families and individuals, who can find themselves caught up in the most distressing of circumstances as they go about their daily business.

Colleagues throughout the chamber have reminded us of horrific events in Glasgow—at George Square and elsewhere—and have paid tribute to the victims who lost their lives, the injured and all the families who have been affected, and to the magnificent responders and crews who rushed to the scene to give assistance.

My constituency has not been without incident. Within two days, over 22 to 24 December, we saw our local emergency service teams rescuing passengers from a train that had run into floodwater down the line from Kilmarnock at Mauchline, and having to free about 30 people. More than 40 people had to be rescued by dinghies from the Asda store in Kilmarnock when the whole area was flooded, and there was a spate of road accidents in the area, two of which were separated by only a few minutes on the same stretch of the A77, which very sadly led to a fatality. Those incidents all presented different challenges to the teams and, as we might expect, their skill in carrying out those rescues in dangerous conditions is testament to their dedication and professionalism. I thank all the emergency staff who were involved in those incidents.

In 2008, my constituent Alison Hume lost her life when she fell into a mineshaft only yards from her home in Galston. That night, despite the issues that were subsequently raised on management of the rescue operation, there were some outstanding feats of bravery and compassion by the rescue personnel at the scene, who descended into the shaft to assist Alison despite the risks to their own safety. Ultimately, Alison’s life was not saved. However, the bravery of the officers who did their best to rescue her has, to my knowledge, never been recognised. In my view, that is a mistake that should be corrected, and that view is also supported by Alison’s family.

Our emergency services personnel are a unique breed of people. They go to work just as many of the rest of us do, but at the back of their minds they must be thinking, “This could be the day when I’m called on to act to save a life and in so doing to put my own life at risk, too.” It takes a special type of person to do that type of work. Thankfully, in Scotland we have an abundance of such men and women, who are prepared to risk their own lives to save others. We should thank them for that at every opportunity. Perhaps the cabinet secretary could give some thought to introducing a Scottish Parliament award for outstanding feats of bravery in the line of duty by our emergency services personnel and, indeed, by ordinary citizens, who also come to the aid of their fellow citizens who are in distress.

In Scotland, we are lucky to be witnessing a 40-year low in recorded crime. We have 1,000 extra police officers on our streets, and the number of our citizens who are likely to become victims of crime has dropped again and the amount is lower than in England and Wales. More people feel safer in their communities and the number of people who perceive local crime rates to be staying the same or improving has also gone up significantly, to about 76 per cent.

On top of the extra police officers, numbers of ambulance technicians and paramedics have increased since 2007, by roughly 16 per cent and 12 per cent respectively. Numbers of consultants and nurses are also well up on the levels that they were at in 2006.

We see high levels of public confidence that our accident and emergency services can meet our needs over the winter: 63 per cent of people believe that, which is significantly higher than the figure of just 46 per cent across the other countries in the UK.

Now, in all parts of Scotland, as a result of the Alison Hume case, crews have direct access to specialist equipment and expertise in order that they can effect rescues wherever they are needed.

On performance, our call-out response times are the best in the UK and our ambulance crews respond to incidents in 6.5 minutes, on average. Our performance against A and E targets in September was 93.5 per cent; again, that is the best in the UK and it means that about 750,000 patients were seen within four hours. Our Ayr and Monklands A and E units alone dealt with more than 800,000 attendances, which would, of course, have been clogging up other A and E departments if those units had been closed some years ago.

In Scotland, we can be proud of our emergency services personnel and volunteers, who day in and day out put themselves at great risk in order to keep us safe, or rescue us when called upon to do so. It is right that the Parliament has a debate such as this to pay tribute to those wonderful people. We have heard many examples of the professionalism and courage that our emergency services teams display every day in some part of Scotland. May we as a Parliament congratulate and thank them for everything that they do.