Comment: Ambulance service is feeling the strain too

There has been a lot of attention on the strain which hospitals and GP practices find themselves under.

The Scottish Ambulance Service has apologised for delays in getting to a call outside the Scottish Parliament

The same is true of the floundering social care set up in the Capital. The Evening News has been at the forefront of reporting on these problems and will continue to do so. These are important issues which impact on the day to day lives of many of our readers.

The ambulance service has been less under the microscope.

The case of the young woman who had to wait for more than one hour and 40 minutes for paramedics, after collapsing outside the Scottish Parliament building, suggests it too is struggling to cope.

No one can fault the staff who in this case appear to have made all the right calls by making sure those who most desperately needed help got it first. That is no easy task.

But leaving an ill young woman to wait 100 minutes for help in the city centre shows just how stretched the service becomes at peak times. The simple fact is that on Tuesday there were not enough ambulances on the road to provide the kind of service we expect.

Like many emergency services, we don’t often think about ambulances - not, that is, until we find ourselves needing one.