A damning internal report leaked to the Daily Record shows 5,500 patients every week are waiting longer than they should for an ambulance.
The report also shockingly states no one seemed concerned that “patients were suffering unnecessary distress, harm and death ”.
The internal Scottish Ambulance Service study reported on progress of the Short Life Working Group, which was set up to tackle waiting times.
It comes just months after the Daily Record told of increased waiting times for ambulances and highlighted the fears of unions that lives would be lost.
We told of long delays as ambulances queued up at accident and emergency departments for hours.
The Scottish Government admitted it was not good enough and called in the Army to provide back-up and gave an additional £20million to help ease the problem.
But the report by Dr Mike Bell, strategy implementation and quality improvement manager for the SAS, wrote “no progress was made in 12 months” from November 2020 to November 2021.
He stated: “No one seemed concerned that patients were suffering unnecessary distress and harm and avoidable death or that frontline staff had missed meal breaks and constant shift over-runs.”
More than 70,000 less serious “yellow category” patients in the year waited more than an hour for an ambulance.
One of the aims of the working group was no “yellow” patient would wait more than 90 minutes.
But the report revealed: “This has not been met so the target has been changed to no patient should wait more than five hours.
"Does this drive improvement or just return a smaller number that looks more acceptable?”
Scottish Secretary of trade union Unite Pat Rafferty said the findings were “staggering and jaw dropping”.
He said: “It confirms the horror stories our members at the Scottish Ambulance Service have been telling us for some time.
“Critically, the report highlights that system decline started in 2017 and the crisis in the ambulance service predates Covid.
"Everything we have been warning about in terms of lower availability of ambulances, longer response times, poor culture, failure of leadership, and staff pressures is directly leading to the loss of lives.
“It is a catalogue of dysfunctionality.
“There must be a full independent investigation into the Scottish Ambulance Service because the system is broken.“
Don't miss the latest news from around Scotland and beyond - Sign up to our daily newsletter here .
