FOI 25-289 SORT Incidents
Freedom of Information Request
- Reference
- FOI 25-289 SORT Incidents
- Request Date
- 08 Jul 2025
- Response Date
- 05 Aug 2025
- Information Requested
I am writing to request information under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 regarding the deployment and use of Special Operations Response Teams (SORT) within the Scottish Ambulance Service. Please provide the following as an Excel spreadsheet:
1. Number of SORT team deployments The total number of incidents that SORT teams were deployed to in each of the following regions, per calendar year from 2019 to the most recent full year available: • Grampian • Highlands • Fife • Tayside • North Division (total) • East Central (total) • West Central • South East • South West
2. Deployments to officially designated SORT jobs For each of the areas listed in question 1 and per calendar year since 2019, how many of the above incidents were officially designated as SORT jobs?
3. Job classifications for SORT deployments Please outline the internal classifications or designations used for incidents involving SORT teams — for example: • CBRN • HART-style (English term I think, maybe yours is just “SORT”?) • Mass casualty • Technical rescue • Other relevant classifications For each classification, please provide: • A short explanation of what the classification includes • The number of incidents SORT teams were deployed to under each classification, for each of the areas listed in question 1 and per calendar year since 2019.
4. Deployments to non-SORT-classified incidents For each of the areas listed in question 1 and per calendar year, please provide the number of non-SORT-classified incidents that SORT teams were deployed to, broken down by: • Type of incident (e.g. cardiac arrest, trauma, ambulance support, etc.) • Reason for SORT deployment (e.g. ambulance shortfall, proximity, availability, specialist equipment) If reasons are not categorised, please confirm whether that information is recorded at all. • For those in Grampian, Highland, Fife and Tayside, please include the date and location of the incident (if specifics risk confidentiality, please name nearest town?), the categorisation of any casualty (using SAS's colour coding triage), the hospital casualties were conveyed to, and if that was by SORT or conventional ambulance.
- Response
Please see the attached sheet detailing incidents attended to SORT, this information has been gathered looking at call signs starting with SOR or RRD with the date range of January 2019 – June 2025. We have provided information based on emergency incidents.
Important things to consider when interpreting this data
The Scottish ambulance service is mandated by the Scottish Government to have a response to significant or major incidents. All incidents that we respond to are individually coded, and SORT are targeted towards the codes that relate to incidents that are either significant in nature or require a specialist response e.g. heights, water, difficult access etc. These incidents are known as Pre-Determined Attendances (PDA's).SORT will also respond to non-PDA incidents which are initially life-threatening calls and standard emergency calls when they are identified as the closest response, or when we are experiencing service wide pressures.
Scotland Tab
The first table details the incidents attended by SORT for Fife, Grampian, Highland and Tayside areas as requested in question 1. Information has been provided for both PDA’s and other emergency calls by calendar year.The second table details the incidents attended by SORT for all Divisions in Scotland as requested in question 1. Information has been provided for both PDA’s and all emergency calls by calendar year.
It is important to note that the information provided for Fife, Grampian, Highlands and Tayside are included in East Central figures aligned to the Regional Resilience Partnership area.
The third table details ‘classifications’ of the incidents attended by SORT for ‘PDA’ Incidents only for the 4 sub-divisions of the Regional Resilience Partnership area (Fife, Grampian, Highlands and Tayside) broken down by year.
The fourth table details ‘classifications’ of incidents attended by SORT for ‘NON-PDA’ incidents only for the 4 sub-divisions of the Regional Resilience Partnership area (Fife, Grampian, Highlands and Tayside) broken down by year.
The fifth table details ‘classifications’ of the incidents attended by SORT for ‘PDA’ Incidents only for ALL divisions of the Scottish Ambulance Service broken down by year.
The sixth table details ‘classifications’ of the incidents attended by SORT for ‘NON-PDA’ Incidents only for ALL divisions of the Scottish Ambulance Service broken down by year.
Non-PDA Colour Tab
The table on this tab details the colour code breakdown for all non-PDA incidents where SORT attended.It is important to note
The Scottish Ambulance Service categorise their calls differently from all other UK Ambulance Trusts, these figures are NOT comparable with other trusts.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.
For the given data, you will see that some of the figures are shown as, five or less than five, please note that this figure has been suppressed because the statistical value is less than five. The Scottish Ambulance service has a duty, under the Data Protection Act to avoid directly or indirectly revealing any personal details. It is therefore widely understood that provision of statistics on small numbers, five or less are statistically suppressed upon disclosure.NON-PDA Conveyance Tab
The four tables on this tab detail the total conveyances from NON-PDA incidents. This has also been broken down into incidents that have been conveyed by SORT and conveyances by other resources, for the years requested. Each table details the four sub-divisions requested.NON-PDA to Hospital Tab
The table on this tab details the top 10 conveyance demand hospitals with SORT/Other Resources. This has been provided for incidents in the 4 requested sub-divisions only.Important information
The Scottish Ambulance Service does not hold datasets to report on reasons for deployment; it is for this reason we have applied section 17 of the Freedom of Information Scotland Act 2002 as information not held.
To provide date and location information on each incident could result in the information becoming identifiable. The Scottish Ambulance service has a duty, under the Data Protection Act to avoid directly or indirectly revealing any personal details. It is for this reason we have applied section 38 1(b) of the Freedom of Information Scotland Act 2002 as personal information.
Providing the nearest town for incidents in an attempt to anonymise incidents would require us to look at each individual incident and apply complex skill and judgement to change the location in order to make it less identifiable. The Scottish Ambulance Service is not obliged to create new information under the Freedom of Information Scotland Act 2002, it is for this reason we have applied section 17 to this section of your request.- Response Documents
