Hansard

I congratulate Jamie Stone on highlighting the ambulance service in this way, because the service is of the utmost importance to people's lives. In a perfect world, there would be 24-hour rostered working covering all of the Highlands and the Western Isles. However, such expense might not be within the Scottish Executive's budget. In the Highlands, only Dingwall and Inverness stations are full time at present.

I sympathise deeply with any ambulance crew that is sent out on a long-distance transplacement during call hours, when they have just worked a long roster shift of eight or 12 hours. When I spoke to the manager in Inverness, he highlighted that point and said that everything possible is done to avoid such situations, but they are unpredictable and occur only occasionally.

The nature of ambulance crews' work is that when they are on call, being paid only 90p per hour, they must be immediately reachable; there needs to be a three-minute response time. British Telecom workers, some of whom work along the same sort of lines, have to be reached only within about an hour. That is why any Wick ambulance crew must live within three miles of Wick. Crew members must also notify the Scottish Ambulance Service of any secondary employment that they undertake, and have it approved. Ambulance crews sacrifice a lot. Their job is very important and is undertaken only by individuals who have a vocation for it, because the job most certainly has its drawbacks.

Jamie Stone is asking for an upgrade to full-time cover for Wick. Again, although I sympathise with that, other areas will, I presume, also seek upgrades; for example Thurso, Golspie, Lairg, Lochinver, Kinlochbervie and Bettyhill, all of which have ambulance crews. The ambulance crews in those places surely feel that they, too, deserve more rostered hours. Stewart Stevenson mentioned Peterhead, which has a larger population than Wick and still works part time, but which would, I presume, make a similar call.

One other point that has been put to me is that if Wick station is made full time, it might be necessary to shorten the hours or reduce the crews to keep within the budget, which might weaken the service. At the moment, when on call the crews receive only 90p per hour, but once on a mission they move to the full-time rate. Some ambulance crews do not mind working like that, but others would prefer full-time rostered employment.

The situation calls for constant review of each station, because the Scottish Ambulance Service is a publicly funded body that provides a service that is based on patient demand. The service has come a long way since the days pre-1995, when many small stations were worked by contractors. Now, the staff are better trained and generally work in pairs. Wick has performed brilliantly, and is ahead of all its targets.

Finally, centralisation of health services is increasing the distances that are travelled by ambulance. For example, Caithness to Raigmore is a 200-mile round trip. Such a journey can be made longer by the need to pick up patients from different addresses in Caithness and Sutherland on the way south, by delays at Raigmore hospital, and by the delivery of patients to different addresses on the return journey. I sympathise very much with the ambulance crews, and I agree that people who live in remote areas should have the best of health care, but centralisation is working against that. More emphasis should be placed on upgrading the use of community hospitals which, in turn, would reduce the length of many ambulance journeys.