Edinburgh patients facing 20-minute ambulance wait
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The waiting-time is more than double the Scottish Ambulance Service’s eight-minute target for call-outs classed as life-threatening.
A total of 4350 of the highest-risk patients, known as category A, waited more than 20 minutes in 2015-16, up from 2891 the previous year.
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Hide AdThe ambulance service stressed the average response time to a life-threatening emergency is about 7.5 minutes.
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In Edinburgh, the number of patients facing long waits increased from 58 patients in 2014-15 to 108 in 2015-16.
Edinburgh Western MSP and Scottish Liberal Democrat health spokesman Alex Cole-Hamilton, whose party obtained the figures, praised the ambulance service for its “fantastic, life-saving work” but called for more support.
He said: “Ministers have been warned repeatedly by doctors that paramedics are overstretched and under-resourced.”