Patient's 300-yard trip from hospital helipad to ward becomes 50-mile journey amid 'truly terrifying' ambulance shortage

21 December 2022, 07:09

A patient's 300-yard trip from a Scottish hospital's helipad to its wards became a 50-mile journey because no ambulance transport was available.

They had originally been airlifted to the University Hospital Crosshouse near Kilmarnock having taken unwell on the Isle of Arran earlier this month.

Having landed on the helipad there, procedure would normally see an ambulance transfer the patient around 300 yards into the A&E department.

But none were available upon landing.

That was still the case at least 15 minutes later, and in sub-zero temperatures the pilot was forced to take off to avoid the aircraft icing up and being unable to fly at all, instead diverting around 25 miles north to Glasgow Airport.

The patient would later that night be taken by road transport back to Crosshouse - completing a more than 50-mile round trip that delayed their admission by several hours.

Health board bosses had warned in the days before that "hospitals and staff are under extreme pressure".

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Scottish Conservative shadow health secretary Dr Sandesh Gulhane said: "This will have been a truly terrifying situation for this patient and my thoughts are with them. It lays bare the total chaos that Humza Yousaf is presiding over in our NHS, despite the best efforts of dedicated ambulance crews.

"Going back and forth between different health boards, having already been in an air ambulance, will have caused huge distress and anxiety for this suffering patient.

"Humza Yousaf owes this patient an urgent apology. It is utterly shameful that due to the crisis in our NHS, an ambulance could not even be found to make this short journey, to transfer them as quickly as possible into Crosshouse Hospital.

"His inaction has pushed crews beyond breaking point and the Health Secretary should be sacked immediately by Nicola Sturgeon."

A spokesperson for the Scottish Ambulance Service said: "Whilst we are limited in what we can say due to patient confidentiality, we can confirm we transported a patient from Arran to Crosshouse Hospital via air ambulance on Thursday 8 December 2022.

"Unfortunately, extended hospital turnaround times at Crosshouse Hospital at that time meant a delay to the ambulance and therefore the aircraft had to divert to Glasgow Airport to avoid icing in the bad weather. We apologise for any distress caused."

A Scottish Government spokesperson: "We are aware of this incident and understand that the ambulance service are looking into the circumstances. We expect steps to be taken to ensure incidents of this kind do not occur again, and we apologise to this patient for their experience and hope they are recovering well.

"NHS Ayrshire & Arran work closely with colleagues across all emergency services, including our colleagues in the Scottish Ambulance Service, to anticipate and mitigate against delays wherever possible.

Joanne Edwards, Acute Director at NHS Ayrshire & Arran said: "NHSAA is committed to providing safe and effective health care and treatment for our population in as timely a way as possible.

"We are currently experiencing extremely high demand for our unscheduled care services and our staff are working extremely hard to assess and treat patients as quickly as possible.