Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 22 September 2021
I will consider any good suggestion that comes from anywhere in this chamber, but I have never said that this is “entirely down to the pandemic”. In fact, yesterday, I said very clearly that, of course, there were challenges in our NHS and our Ambulance Service beforehand. However, it would be churlish and inaccurate not to recognise the severe shock of the pandemic on our NHS.
Also, it is not just about Covid patients. Covid patients are now taking up about 1,100 beds, but it is about the cumulative impact, as Dr Beckett explained well on “Good Morning Scotland” today. Patients with chronic conditions who have not been able to be seen in the past 18 months are now presenting with more complex issues and problems.
I will provide some context to the debate. Yesterday, the Scottish Ambulance Service received 2,226 emergency calls, of which 1,580 required a response from an ambulance. Over 19 per cent of those incidents were triaged as being immediately life threatening. Everyone at SAS is performing their duties under unprecedented pressure, and I thank them once again for their continued efforts. I have set out a number of proposals to support and improve staff wellbeing.
As many members will know, the SAS website includes published board papers, and performance statistics are included in those papers. However, I know that there are calls from across the Parliament for more information to be provided. Now seems to be an appropriate time to announce that the Scottish Ambulance Service will begin work on publishing performance data, by health board, on a more accessible part of its website. That information will be available soon, and I will make sure that members are updated on it.
Today’s debate comes on the heels of yesterday’s announcement, and I want to set the record straight in relation to some of the amendments that have been lodged. Not a single penny will be cut from the Scottish Ambulance Service’s budget. In fact, we are increasing its budget by over 16 per cent in this year alone—a £44 million increase on last year.
I will focus on just two of the commitments that I made yesterday, in order to give an update to Parliament. I can now confirm that deployment of Army personnel to support the Scottish Ambulance Service will begin from Sunday, with training commencing from Friday, and it will, in fact, total 114 personnel for ambulance driver support. That increase was agreed yesterday afternoon by the Ministry of Defence, which makes the decision on final numbers to support operational deployment. The deployment will come in three tranches, the first of which will be 27 drivers and seven support staff. There will be further deployments on Monday and Wednesday, and all additional boots will be on the ground by the end of the month. I formally place on record my thanks to our armed forces, who, in typical fashion, have responded to our call with extreme urgency and pace.
Yesterday, I also announced an additional £20 million of funding for the Scottish Ambulance Service. I can confirm that that money will be spent on a number of areas, including supporting the armed forces involvement that I have just set out; supporting increased senior clinical decision making; facilitating additional community support, where appropriate, including from the Red Cross; and facilitating additional student capacity to support services.
All of that will be done when it is clinically safe to do so. This is where I want to address one or two of the points that Ms Baillie has raised. I will take suggestions from wherever in Parliament they come, and I do not dismiss entirely or out of hand the suggestion for a field hospital. However, it will be important, first of all, that options are clinically safe and, secondly, that we have the workforce to staff any such beds. That option has been—