FOI 25-348 Taxi Usage for Hospital Conveyances
Freedom of Information Request
- Reference
- FOI 25-348 Taxi Usage for Hospital Conveyances
- Request Date
- 08 Aug 2025
- Response Date
- 25 Aug 2025
- Information Requested
I would like to make a request under the Freedom of Information Act with regards to when taxis are being sent in place of emergency ambulances to transport patients to hospital.
1. Over the past 12 months (1st August 2024 to present), please specify if the Scottish Ambulance Service has sent a taxi instead of an ambulance in response to a 999 call
2. When a taxi is provided, please specify the date this occurred, the company used and why the patient needed to be taken to hospital.- Response
The Scottish Ambulance Service will always dispatch an ambulance for patients who require an ambulance intervention and/or monitoring on route to hospital.
Taxis are only arranged after clinical assessment through our Integrated Clinical Hub or clinicians at scene, who have identified that a patient requires further assessment at hospital, it is safe and appropriate for the patient to travel by this method and not necessary for an emergency ambulance to transport them to hospital.
Since January 2024, use of taxis to convey patients to hospital accounted to 0.7% of all incidents managed by the Scottish Ambulance Service.
Please see the attached sheet detailing the number of times an ambulance has conveyed a patient to hospital, broken down by chief complaint.
We have exempt the provision of specific dates of the incidents as this could make some incidents identifiable, the Scottish Ambulance Service has a duty under the Data Protection Act 2018 to prevent directly or indirectly revealing personal data. It is for this reason we have applied exemption 38 1(b) to this section of your request.
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. It is for this reason we have also not broken the information into genders, the figures were too small to report.Please see below a list of Taxi companies that have been utilised:
Taxi Service Supplier's
Aberdeen Taxis
Alpha Taxis
Central Taxis - Aberdeen
Central Taxis - Edinburgh
Computer Cab Ltd (Aberdeen)
East Kilbride
Express Taxis
Kininmonth Cabs Ltd
Mcleans Taxis Ltd
Moray Taxis
NHS Ayrshire & Arran (via Phoneix Taxis)
Penny Cars
Perth Radio Taxi
Portsoy Taxis Ltd
Rainbow City Taxis Limited
Rainbow Taxis
Tele Taxis- Response Documents
