FOI 26-272 RTC's involving SAS vehicles
Freedom of Information Request
- Reference
- FOI 26-272 RTC's involving SAS vehicles
- Request Date
- 17 Jun 2026
- Response Date
- 02 Jul 2026
- Information Requested
I request the following information relating to road traffic collisions involving Scottish Ambulance Service vehicles.
For each complete financial year from the introduction of Newly Qualified Paramedics (NQPs) to the present:
1. The total number of road traffic collisions involving Scottish Ambulance Service vehicles, including but not limited to Ambulance Emergency Units (AEUs), Patient Transport Vehicles (PTVs), and PRUs.
2. The total number of employees authorised to drive Scottish Ambulance Service vehicles during each year.
3. For drivers involved in collisions, please provide a breakdown by:
- Age band (e.g. under 21, 21–24, 25–29, 30–39, 40–49, 50–59, 60+).
- Length of time holding a full UK driving licence.
- Length of service with the Scottish Ambulance Service.
- Whether the employee was classified as an NQP at the time of the collision.
4. Please provide the total number of authorised drivers within each of the above categories for the same period, to allow calculation of collision rates.
5. Where recorded, please provide the number of collisions classified as preventable and non-preventable within each category.
6. Please provide details of any minimum age or driving licence requirements that have been in place for operational staff drivers during this period, including the dates on which any changes were introduced.- Response
Q1 – Please see the table below detailing the total number of road traffic incidents involving all Scottish Ambulance Service Vehicles since the introduction of NQP’s (date range 01/04/2020 - 31/03/2026) broken down by year:
Financial Year
Total
2020/21
729
2021/22
863
2022/23
768
2023/24
871
2024/25
851
2025/26
937
Total
5019
Q2 – The Scottish Ambulance Service does not hold this information.
While there are driving licence requirements for frontline operational roles where driving an ambulance or other operational vehicle forms part of the role, this does not represent a complete record of all employees who may be authorised to drive Scottish Ambulance Service vehicles.
Some staff in non-frontline roles may also require access to Service vehicles, such as pool cars or other non-operational vehicles, as part of their duties. The Service does not maintain a single central record that captures all employees authorised to drive any Scottish Ambulance Service vehicle during each year.
To provide the information requested would require the Service to identify and manually cross-reference information from multiple sources, including workforce, training, licence checking, fleet and local management records. This would require the creation of new information rather than the extraction of recorded information held by the Service.
It is for this reason that we have applied section 17 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002, as the information is not held.
Q3 - The Scottish Ambulance Service does not hold this information.
Collision data is not recorded in a way that captures staff age, length of service, length of time holding a driving licence, or NQP status at the time of an incident. While some of this information may exist within separate HR or training systems, it is not linked to collision records in a reportable format.
To provide this information would require the Service to manually review individual incident records and cross-reference multiple systems, applying new categories and interpretation. This would involve the creation of new information rather than the extraction of recorded data.
It is for this reason we have applied section 17 of the Freedom of Information Scotland Act 2002 as information not held.
Q4 - The Scottish Ambulance Service does not hold this information.
There is no dataset that records all authorised drivers by age band, length of time holding a full UK driving licence, length of service, or NQP status for each year requested.
While elements of this information may exist within separate workforce, training, or driver authorisation records, they are not routinely recorded or reported in a format that would allow the Service to identify the number of authorised drivers within each category for each year.
To provide this information would require the Service to extract data from multiple systems, manually cross-reference records, and create new categories and calculations. This would involve the creation of new information rather than the provision of recorded information held by the Service.
It is for this reason that we have applied section 17 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002, as the information is not held.
Q5 - The Scottish Ambulance Service does not hold this information.
While collision records are not recorded in a way that classifies them as preventable and non-preventable, The Service also does not record or report collisions by driver age, length of time holding a full UK driving licence, length of service, or NQP status.
To provide the information requested would require the Service to manually review individual collision records and cross-reference multiple separate systems in order to identify and categorise the drivers involved. This would involve the creation of new information rather than the extraction of recorded information held by the Service.
It is for this reason that we have applied section 17 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002, as the information is not held.
Q6 – The Scottish Ambulance Service holds information relevant to this part of your request.
Current driving standards and authorisation requirements are set out in HS 039A Safe Driver and Driving Standards, which was effective from 11 March 2025 and issued on 26 March 2025. This document includes requirements relating to driving licence checks and authorisation to drive Service vehicles.
For operational roles where driving ambulance vehicles is a requirement, the Scottish Ambulance Service considers Category C1 to be an entry requirement. Ambulance clinicians, including Newly Qualified Paramedics, are also required to hold a full manual driving licence, as this is an operational requirement due to the mix of manual and automatic vehicles within the fleet.
It may be helpful to note that published information relevant to this part of your request is available on the Scottish Ambulance Service website:
HS 039A Safe Driver and Driving Standards: hs-039a-safe-driver-and-driving-standards-redacted-2.pdf
FOI 26-096 NQP Driving Licence Requirements: FOI 26-096 NQP Driving License Requirements
FOI 25-521 C1 Licence Requirement: FOI 25-521 C1 license Requirement
FOI 25-084 Ambulance Care Assistant Requirements: FOI 25-084 Ambulance Care Assistant Requirements
To the extent that this information is already publicly accessible, section 25 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 applies, as the information is otherwise accessible.
The Service does not hold a schedule of all historic changes to minimum age or driving licence requirements for operational staff drivers during the period requested. Where previous requirements were reflected in recruitment adverts or role profiles, these were managed as part of individual recruitment campaigns and are not held in a reportable format. To identify and compare requirements across each campaign and determine whether changes were introduced would require manual review and interpretation of historic recruitment material. Therefore, where no recorded summary of historic changes is held, section 17 of FOISA applies.
