NHS

Front line crews working for the Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS) allege that the charity’s ambulances are covering up for a shortage of full-time vehicles and warn that although trained to administer medical treatment, Red Cross personnel are not qualified to deal with all 999 calls.

The SAS confirmed the Red Cross was sent to incidents but insisted the organisation was providing an additional, not a replacement, service.

David Forbes, Unison’s regional convener for the ambulance service, said the public had a right to know what was happening.

“When the ambulance service in the division has been really stretched the Red Cross comes in to help,” he said. “It has been used when the SAS has been short of crews and the Red Cross have been working in Inverness on and off for some time.

“Either the SAS will ring the Red Cross or it will call and ask if the ambulance service needs any help, and it has been out on the road responding to calls.

“The Red Cross would say it is a professional organisation but it offers nowhere near the same level of care as a properly trained ambulance crew.

“They are first responders. The Red Cross will be at a road traffic accident but it hasn’t got the level of skills, competency and comprehension that our members have. It has been used for drug overdoses and road accidents and is covering more than it should be.”

The allegations came as MSPs expressed concern about the running of the SAS during a debate at Holyrood yesterday. Labour’s health spokeswoman Margaret Curran said staffing shortages had left employees under serious strain and considering industrial action while Ross Finnie, for the Lib-Dems, said the public had serious misgivings about aspects of the service.

Health minister Nicola Sturgeon responded by promising to consider any evidence about problems with the SAS but ruled out an external inquiry.

Sam Kennedy, the SAS’s Inverness-based general manager for the North and West Division, denied the Red Cross was used to plug any gaps in the ambulance service locally.

“That is simply not true,” he said. “Red Cross volunteers attend local emergency calls so that they can provide immediate life-saving first aid until an ambulance arrives. Under the first responder scheme, Red Cross volunteers, particularly in rural areas, are notified of emergency calls received. These are people highly trained by the NHS.”

A Red Cross spokeswoman confirmed its volunteers could attend all types of emergencies after the charity signed a contract with the SAS in 2006.

“If we are the nearest asset to the incident we will get the call from the SAS,” she said. “We have a memorandum of agreement with the ambulance service but the union’s claims about plugging gaps is not the understanding we are working to.

“The incidents we are called out to are not specified and that could be road accidents but an SAS ambulance always attends the scene as well. We don’t have a list of incidents we wouldn’t attend and we are not sent instead of an ambulance.”

The Red Cross did contact the ambulance service to find out if its assistance was required, the spokeswoman added, but the charity was not paid for providing the service.

However, Highlands and Islands Conservative MSP Mary Scanlon was shocked to hear Red Cross volunteers had been used for emergencies.

“A paramedic is highly skilled, trained and experienced,” she said. “The Red Cross does a wonderful job in first aid but it is unfair to expect them have the level of training and experience that paramedics have.

“The Red Cross, which is a voluntary organisation, should not have to take on this responsibility and the public does not expect it to be answering 999 calls.”

h.ross@inverness-courier.co.uk