Ambulances have waited the equivalent of more than 157 years to drop off patients at Scotland’s crowded hospitals since the pandemic, figures show.
The Scottish Liberal Democrats blamed the ‘staggering delays’ in turnarounds on a lack of beds and said it showed the SNP ‘cannot be trusted’ with the NHS.
Between 2022 to 2025 inclusive, ambulances waited 1.38million hours to unload and depart from hospitals due to clinical handover, equipment returns and vehicle cleaning.
Scottish Ambulance Service data showed median turnaround times improved in just two of the 14 regional health boards over the four years.
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton said hold-ups at hospitals left fewer ambulances free to respond to 999 calls.
The median response times for the most critically ill cases, such as suspected heart attacks, was around seven minutes last month.
He said: ‘These figures reflect the staggering delays you could face if you ring for an ambulance at a time of crisis.
‘Despite the best efforts of staff, ambulances are waiting longer and longer outside of hospitals because there’s barely any space to receive new patients inside.
The worst ambulance waits have been in the local board of SNP Health Secretary Neil Gray
Alex Cole-Hamilton said hold-ups at hospitals left fewer ambulances free to respond to 999 calls
‘There are not enough beds in A&E because there are no longer the beds in longer-term wards to move them to.
‘Too many beds in longer-term wards are occupied by people who are medically ready to leave but can’t because the shortages of care workers and care packages won’t let them.
‘After 19 years, the SNP cannot be trusted with our health service.’
He said his party wanted to invest £400million into social care over the next three years to ensure more care in the community, freeing up hospitals beds and cutting ambulance waits.
NHS Ayrshire & Arran saw its average turnaround time drop from 53min 35sec to 49min 28sec from 2022 to 2025, while in NHS Shetland it fell from 24min 10 sec to 22 min.
The other dozen boards all saw rises, with the median turnaround in two topping an hour, with the worst waits in the local board of SNP Health Secretary Neil Gray.
NHS Lanarkshire’s rose from 52min 38sec to 63min 28sec, while in NHS Grampian median turnarounds surged from 48min 03sec to 62min 43 sec.
The longest single turnaround time in Scotland over the period was also in NHS Lanarkshire, where an ambulance took 1,070 minutes to drop off a patient, or 17hrs 50min.
SNP candidate Maree Todd said: ‘Of course there is still much work to be done, but under the SNP, we have seen a 62 per cent increase in the number of paramedics working in the Scottish Ambulance Service over the past decade.’
Public Health Scotland also reported almost four in ten A&E patients waited longer than the four-hour target last week. In the seven days to April 12, just 62.7 per cent were admitted, discharged or transferred on time, a small improvement on 59.9 per cent the previous week.
The proportion waiting more than eight hours was 14.1 per cent (down from 14.7), while 6.1 per cent waited more than 12 hours (down from 6.2). Scottish Tory health spokesman Dr Sandesh Gulhane said: ‘These dire statistics are further proof that the SNP have run our health service into the ground.
‘If the SNP get another five years in power, they will obsess over independence at the expense of everything else.
‘Frontline staff and patients deserve better than a government that only cares about constitutional grievances.’
Scottish Labour deputy Jackie Baillie added: ‘Thousands of Scots are facing dangerously long waits for urgent care as a result of the SNP’s failure to fix the mess in A&E.
‘John Swinney and the SNP have given up on dealing with the problem – telling patients and staff alike to accept chaos as the norm.’
SNP candidate Clare Haughey said: ‘Our A&Es are outperforming the rest of the UK. There is still much work to be done but the SNP is the only party with a plan for our NHS.’
