FOI 26-293 NON-Conveyance Complaints
Freedom of Information Request
- Reference
- FOI 26-293 NON-Conveyance Complaints
- Request Date
- 01 Jul 2026
- Response Date
- 22 Jul 2026
- Information Requested
Is it possible for me to lodge an FOI (Freedom of Information) request asking for details of how many complaints have been lodged with the Ambulance Service regarding people who have not been taken to hospital and who have then developed an adverse event over the past 12 month period?
- Response
The Scottish Ambulance Service does not hold complaint information in a recorded category which would allow us to identify complaints about patients who were not conveyed to hospital and who subsequently experienced an adverse event.
To answer this request, we would need to manually review all complaints received during the relevant 12-month period and apply complex skill and judgement to determine whether individual complaints related to non-conveyance and whether they involved a subsequent adverse event. This would require analysis and the creation of new information, rather than the retrieval of recorded information held by SAS.
It is for these reasons we have applied section 17 of the Freedom of Information Scotland Act 2002 as information not held.
For context, Serious Adverse Event Reviews (SAERs) are recorded and managed separately from the complaints process. A search of SAER records identified no SAERs initiated during the last 12 months as a result of a complaint relating to a decision not to convey a patient to hospital.
