FOI 25-198 Call Category Response Times
Freedom of Information Request
- Reference
- FOI 25-198 Call Category Response Times
- Request Date
- 08 May 2025
- Response Date
- 29 May 2025
- Information Requested
I am writing to request information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 regarding ambulance response times and attendance during the year 2024/2025. Specifically, I would like to request the following data for NHS Forth Valley:
The total number of Category 1 (CAT1) calls attended within the allocated time.
The total number of Category 1 (CAT1) calls that took longer than the allocated time to attend.
The total number of Category 2 (CAT2) calls attended within the allocated time.
The total number of Category 2 (CAT2) calls that took longer than the allocated time to attend.
The total number of Category 3 (CAT3) calls attended within the allocated time.
The total number of Category 3 (CAT3) calls that took longer than the allocated time to attend.
The total number of Category 4 (CAT4) calls attended within the allocated time.
The total number of Category 4 (CAT4) calls that took longer than the allocated time to attend.
The total number of times crews requested Critical Care / Helicopter Emergency Medical Service (HEMS) attendance.
The total number of times crews requested Hazardous Area Response Team (HART) attendance.
Please provide this information in a clear, accessible format, ideally broken down by each individual category (CAT1, CAT2, CAT3, and CAT4), and detailing the number of responses that met or exceeded the allocated response time. If possible, could this be provided for the year 2024/2025?- Response
We note that you have referenced FOIA 2000, please note the Scottish Ambulance Service is responding under FOISA 2002 (Freedom of Information Scotland Act 2002).
The Scottish Ambulance Service does not categorise it’s calls as Cat1, Cat2, Cat3 and Cat4 calls.
All calls within the Scottish Ambulance Service are triaged into the following categories:
Purple: Our most critically ill patients. This is where a patient is identified as having a 10% or more chance of having a cardiac arrest. The actual cardiac arrest rate across this category is approximately 53%.
Red: Our next most serious category where a patient is identified as having a likelihood of cardiac arrest between 1% and 9.9%, or having a need for resuscitation interventions such as airway management above 2%. Currently the cardiac arrest rate in this category is approximately 1.5%.
Amber: where a patient is likely to need diagnosis and transport to hospital or specialist care. The cardiac arrest rates for all of these codes is less than 0.5%.
Yellow: a patient who has a need for care but has a very low likelihood of requiring life-saving interventions. For example, patients who have tripped or fallen but not sustained any serious injury.
Please note: the response times show total time and do not factor in possible upgrading or downgrading that may occur depending on the patient condition. For example, a call may start out as a yellow call, subsequently be upgraded to a purple call some time later, but only the total time from the first call received is shown. The starting point is always set for the colour category first determined, not the final colour category assigned. Where delays occur, clinical advisors maintain contact with the patient, checking their condition on an ongoing basis, and upgrading when appropriate.
Public authorities are not required to create information in order to answer a request. There’s a distinction
between creating new information, and compiling information. Where a request can be answered by
compiling information from readily-available resources held by the public authority, this is not the same as
creating new information. However, if collation of the information would require skill and complex
judgement, the information is not held. Response times are not held in a way that allows us to report on whether incidents were attended within ‘allocated’ times. The Scottish Ambulance Service do not allocate response times to each call. It is for this reason we have applied section 17 of the Freedom of Information Scotland Act 2002 as information not held.We have provided the response times for each call category for Forth Valley. This includes the total calls received, the median1 response times and 90th percentile2 response times during the 2024/2025 financial year.
Please see the attached sheet detailing the response times for Forth Valley for the financial year 2024/2025.
Information on how many times crews have requested critical care, HEMS or SORT (Scottish Ambulance Service equivalent to HART) is not held in a way that can be reported on. This is because it is captured in a ‘free-text field’ and the Scottish Ambulance Service does not have standardised terminology that dispatchers would use to record this. It is for this reason we have applied section 17 of the Freedom of Information Scotland Act 2002, as information not held.
- Response Documents
