Police forced to take casualties to hospital amid ambulance crisis

Force risks being ‘paralysed’, warns official report

POLICE are taking injured people to hospital because of massive strain on the ambulance service – leaving the force at risk of being ‘paralysed’, a watchdog has warned.

The burden on Police Scotland, revealed in a damning report, comes amid a slump in officer numbers.

The report also shows that call waiting times for the nonemergency 101 police number have risen by nearly a third.

Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland (HMICS) said officers were having to deal with mental health crises and other problems that were not related to investigating crime.

Scottish Tory justice spokesman Jamie Greene said: ‘This starkly illustrates the staffing crisis the SNP Government is presiding over across our emergency services.

‘Police numbers are at their lowest levels since 2008 and officers who are already overstretched must find it disheartening to have to help out on health-related calls.’

The HMICS report, by HM Chief Inspector of Constabulary Craig Naylor, warned there was a risk of the police service ‘becoming paralysed and unable to cope with unfettered demand’. It said: ‘We heard local officers voice frustration at spending lengthy periods with people who are physically or mentally unwell, and experiences of SAS [the Scottish Ambulance Service] passing responsibility for calls to the police as a result of their own resourcing issues, which included conveying individuals with physical injuries to hospital.’

It comes as Police Scotland is being inundated with calls.

The average waiting time for a 101 call to be answered rose by 30 per cent, from two minutes 37 seconds to three minutes 17 seconds, between 2020-21 and 2021-22. The target answering time is 40 seconds.

A new call-handling system was introduced in 2018, called the Contact Assessment Model, which aims to prioritise urgent calls.

But HMICS said this has ‘not delivered the intended benefits’. Its report said: ‘Demand relating to mental health, distress and vulnerability is increasing.’

It found there had been 129 ‘notifiable incidents’ in 2021 when call-handling staff did not follow procedure or ‘failed to recognise risk’.

An SAS spokesman said: ‘We do not ask police officers to attend emergency situations instead of an ambulance crew or transport patients to hospital. For all 999 calls, the ambulance service will always dispatch the nearest, most appropriate response.’

David Hamilton, of the Scottish Police Federation, said ‘the enormous demand challenges placed on the service’ are ‘simply not sustainable’.

Police Scotland said the emergency service is its priority and the ‘average speed of answer for 999 calls was ten seconds for July 2022’.

Justice Secretary Keith Brown said officer numbers in Scotland are ‘favourable relative to elsewhere in the UK’.

‘Simply not sustainable’

SOARING demand has put massive pressure on policing just as officer numbers slump to record lows – and violent crime is on the rise.

Now the police watchdog warns the force is at risk of being ‘paralysed’ amid reports of its vehicles being used as makeshift ambulances.

One foundering emergency service is bailing out another, with the public left to pay the price, as a damning report by Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary makes clear.

Call response times have worsened dramatically for the 101 non-emergency number under a new system aimed at diverting some of the police workload to the NHS or local authorities. Too often, officers have found themselves not in the role of crime-fighters – but instead playing the part of mental health or social workers.

In the wake of the M9 tragedy, sweeping changes were introduced to prevent callhandling blunders, but some staff are ‘scared’ of making the wrong decisions and need more training. These are deeply concerning disclosures and point to a failure of political oversight, with potentially disastrous consequences for public safety.

Grand promises were made for the single force when it was launched by the SNP almost a decade ago – but it appears to exist in a state of permanent financial crisis.

During the pandemic, police were faced with enormous challenges – and tackled them with great professionalism.

Their leadership, and rank-and-file officers, deserve immense praise for the extraordinarily difficult job they do. But there is no doubt that policing has been politically mismanaged and under-funded – with more swingeing cuts to come. And the net result is an organisation that is patently struggling to fulfil its core functions – despite the dedication of its fastdwindling personnel.

That is unacceptable, and it is vital that ministers act now to prevent further irrevocable damage to one of our most important public services.