Hero Midlothian paramedic sues Scottish Ambulance Service for unfair dismissal

Clinical advisor was sacked for faking phone records, court hears

Tracylee Armit arrives at today's tribunal

AN AWARD-WINNING paramedic was sacked from the Scottish Ambulance Service for falsifying phone records, an employment tribunal has heard.

Tracylee Armit was fired after a Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS) disciplinary decided records proved she failed to check-up on patients by returning non-life threatening 999 calls.

But Ms Armit, 43, from Mayfield, is taking the service to a tribunal this week for unfair dismissal after claiming IT faults and glitches were to blame.

The first day of a hearing at the Edinburgh employment tribunal in Melville Street heard that Ms Armit’s former role as a clinical advisor included triaging lower priority, or yellow, calls.

This meant phoning back a caller to check on the patient in case their condition had deteriorated and they needed to be bumped up the queue for an ambulance.

The court heard from SAS regional director and chair of Ms Armit’s disciplinary panel, Lewis Campbell, that an initial allegation against Mr Armit surfaced in 2018.

“A situation had arisen where the police had contacted the service to get details of a case where a woman had been taken to hospital seriously injured,” said Mr Campbell.

“The police were investigating it as a potential attempted murder and they asked for the record of the call made to the ambulance service, this is fairly routine.”

Although a copy of the original call was found and handed over, there was no record of three follow-up calls.

Ms Armit was identified as the clinical advisor involved and a wider investigation launched including analysing historical calls.

A disciplinary hearing held last February heard that 45.5 percent of Ms Armit’s cases were ranked “unable to triage” - compared to 16.2 percent for clinical advisors as a whole.

And whereas 61 percent of calls handled by all staff resulted in an ambulance responding, only 39.7 percent of Ms Armit’s did.

Mr Campbell told yesterday’s hearing this showed a “considerably higher proportion” of Ms Armit’s calls ended without triage.

“This supports the allegation that Tracylee was noting interventions or attempted callbacks that weren’t made, which is supported by the call records.”

He added: “The role of the clinical advisor is secondary triage or safety netting to identify patients whose condition has deteriorated or whose condition is more serious than thought in the first triage.”

Mr Campbell said there was a “strong possibility” some of the calls Ms Armit dealt with may have warranted a more immediate response and so her actions had a “clinical impact.”

Ms Armit was given the police meritorious award in 2006 after lying down in the snow for an hour while saving the life of a woman who had fallen 50ft from a third-floor window.

Two years later she was credited with helping save a bus passenger’s life after he suffered a heart attack on the Royal Mile.

The tribunal continues.