FOI 26-054 Response Time and Turnaround Times
Freedom of Information Request
- Reference
- FOI 26-054 Response Time and Turnaround Times
- Request Date
- 28 Jan 2026
- Response Date
- 18 Feb 2026
- Information Requested
For the purposes of this request, ambulance response time refers to the time from call receipt to the arrival of an ambulance or SAS crew on scene and hospital turnaround/handover delay refers to the time from arrival at hospital to the point at which the patient is handed over and the ambulance becomes available again.
For each of the last five calendar or financial years (please specify which is used), please provide the number of incidents where ambulance response times exceeded:
a.) 10 minutes
B.) 30 minutes
C.) 60 minutes
D.) 90 minutes
Please break this data down by incident priority category (Purple, Red, Amber, Yellow) and local authority area
For the same five-year period, please provide the number of incidents where patients experienced hospital handover delays of:
a.) More than 30 minutes
b.) More than 60 minutes
Again, please break this data down by:
Incident priority category (Purple, Red, Amber, Yellow), where available and hospital or local authority area
If possible, I would be grateful if the data could be provided in a machine-readable format such as CSV or Excel.
If any part of this request is likely to exceed the cost limit, I would welcome advice on how it could be refined to remain within statutory limits
- Response
On the 29th of January 2026 we clarified that the Scottish Ambulance Service does not hold the information on Response times and Turnaround times in the way you have requested.
Response times are calculated from the point acuity is first assigned (not from when the call first starts) until the crew arrive on scene.
The Scottish Ambulance Service also does not record 'Handover times'. What we do record is ambulance turnaround time, defined as the total time from when an ambulance arrives at hospital until the crew departs/marks clear. This total includes several components (for example, clinical handover, returning equipment, and vehicle cleaning). Because of those components, turnaround time is not directly comparable to “handover” measures published by some other UK ambulance trusts, which may report only the time from arrival to handover acceptance.
This information has been provided on the attached sheet over three tabs.
Important information to consider when interpreting this data
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 sometime 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.
The severity of harm (acuity) has been given as how the call was categorised; call categories are defined in the following way:
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.
The first tab details the total number of incidents attended with greater than 10, 30, 60, 90 minute response time by calendar year, call colour and council area; council area has been determined by the location of the incident.
The second tab details the total number of emergency conveyances with turnaround times greater than 30 and 60 minutes broken down by calendar year and council area.
The third tab details the total number of emergency conveyances turnaround times with a greater than 30- and 60-minute turnaround time by calendar year and hospital.
- Response Documents
