FOI 26-057 - Airlifts by Category
Freedom of Information Request
- Reference
- FOI 26-057 - Airlifts by Category
- Request Date
- 30 Jan 2026
- Response Date
- 23 Feb 2026
- Information Requested
According to the Freedom of Information Requests attached there was medical airlifts from Caithness General Hospital KW1 5NS between 2015-2025.
Therefore, I wish to make a Freedom of Information Request for a breakdown of the medical airlifts from 2015 to 2025.
Example the number of maternity airlifts, heart attack airlifts, road traffic accident airlifts etc...
This includes a breakdown of each year.
- Response
Under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), a public authority is required to provide information that is held in recorded form at the time of the request. FOISA does not oblige the Scottish Ambulance Service to create new information, offer interpretation, or undertake analysis that is not already recorded. Accordingly, the data provided reflects the figures and categories as they are currently held within our reporting systems.
Air ambulance transfers from hospitals are organised according to how urgently the patient needs to be transported, rather than by the specific medical condition or reason for the transfer. Consequently, it is not feasible to provide a further breakdown of clinical codes without significant expertise and judgement.
The categories held are for Emergency/Immediate which should occur within 2 hours of allocation, Urgent which should occur within 4-9 hours of allocation and Routine which is for scheduled care.
Calendar Year
Emergency/Immediate
Urgent
Routine
2015
34
24
5
2016
78
28
8
2017
63
32
<5
2018
63
46
5
2019
68
33
<5
2020
34
21
<5
2021
62
20
<5
2022
58
22
<5
2023
59
21
<5
2024
65
12
<5
2025
82
17
<5
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.
