FOI 25-410 Taxi Usage
Freedom of Information Request
- Reference
- FOI 25-410 Taxi Usage
- Request Date
- 22 Sep 2025
- Response Date
- 16 Oct 2025
- Information Requested
1. The number of times that a 999 call resulted in a taxi being sent to collect the patient rather than an ambulance, broken down by region, in the calendar years 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025 to 30 June.
2. The number of times that a 111 call resulted in a taxi being sent to collect the patient rather than an ambulance, broken down by region, in the calendar years 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025 to 30 June.
3. The amount spent on hiring taxis to collect patients following 111 or 999 calls in the calendar years 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025 to 30 June.- 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.
For question 1 & 2, please see the attached sheet detailing the number of times the number of times a 999 call or 111 call has resulted in the use of an ambulance.
It should be noted – for 111 calls, these incidents have been identified using calls of either 111 online, Out of Hours GP, NHS24, NHS24 Emergency & NHS24 Digital Transfer.
Please see the table below detailing the costs associated with taxi usage in the Scottish Ambulance Service. There is no way to separate the costs for patient and staff usage without assessing each journey which would be creating new information; this is not something authorities are obliged to do under FOISA 2002Calendar Year Taxi Contract Expenditure
2022 £51,868
2023 £165,999
2024 £115,127
2025 (to 30 June) £36,739- Response Documents
