Scotland’s ‘overstretched’ ambulance service is sending minibuses out to deal with emergency calls, it has been revealed.
Patient transport vehicles (PTV) were dispatched to 320 999 calls last year, sparking fears of ‘life threatening’ consequences.
The vehicles are designed to take patients to and from routine healthcare appointments, but statistics show they are now responding more regularly to far more serious calls.
The transport vehicles carry less life-saving technology than ambulances and are crewed by staff with less medical training than paramedics.
The ambulance service has said PTVs are only ever sent to emergencies after an assessment has been made by a first responder that it is suitable to do so.
However, campaigners have hit out at the situation, stating the pressures the service and its staff are already under could exacerbate any risks.
Pat McIlvogue, Unite industrial officer said: ‘It can be appropriate for patients to be taken to hospitals in patient transport vehicles (PTVs) after assessment.
‘The real issue is though that due to lengthy hospital delays and the acute stresses on the system by the time patients receive care assistance then their health situation may have deteriorated significantly.
The Scottish Ambulance Service used ‘Patient Transport Vehicles’ more than 300 times last year
The ambulance service is coming under increasing pressure
‘Staff should not be put in the awful position of making a decision about either transporting a patient to a hospital or waiting for an emergency back up which could take too long due to patient handover times for ambulances at hospitals.
‘It really is a vicious and dangerous circle that many of our frontline health care professionals face.
‘Any marginal improvements in ambulance waiting times or the use of PTVs in an emergency situation we need to remember is coming from a position of record high levels.
‘The problem still remains that there is underinvestment and understaffing in our health and emergency services.’
Figures released under Freedom of Information show patient transport vehicles attended 320 ‘emergency incidents’ in 2024-25.
This was slightly lower than the 376 incidents they were despatched to a year earlier and less than half of the massive 696 times they were sent to emergencies in 2022-23.
However, the numbers are still far higher than they were in the four year period between 2018-19 and 2021-22. None of those years saw the vehicles attend more than 260 emergencies.
Scottish Conservative shadow public health minister Brian Whittle MSP said: ‘These alarming figures lay bare how overstretched Scotland’s ambulance service is after years of chronic mismanagement by the SNP.
‘It is concerning these vehicles are being used in emergency situations, including when patients are suffering cardiac arrests.
‘Yet this is the life-threatening reality for many Scots, after years of mismanagement by nationalist health secretaries who’ve pushed frontline care beyond breaking point.
‘Patient safety must always be the top priority, but this crisis is only getting worse on the SNP’s watch.
‘Neil Gray needs to cut the bloated bureaucracy in our health service and prioritise getting resources to the frontline.’
Explaining its use of PTVs in its FOI response, the SAS said: ‘The Scottish Ambulance Service will always dispatch an emergency ambulance for patients who require an ambulance intervention and/or monitoring on route to hospital.
‘Patient Transport Vehicles only attend emergency incidents after clinical assessment through our Integrated Clinical Hub or clinicians at scene, who have identified that a patient requires further assessment at hospital, it is safe and appropriate for the patient to travel by this method and not necessary for an emergency ambulance to transport them to hospital.’
The service also said that PTV’s ‘will and have been tasked to cardiac arrests where they are the closest resource’. However, it said the number of these deployments is less than five annually.
