AMBULANCE wait times in Fife have been revealed to be at a three-year high.

A Scottish Liberal Democrat Freedom of Information request analysed average ambulance wait times for the previous three financial years across all 32 Scottish local authorities.

What emerged was that the average response time for the most critical level of ambulance calls in Fife was nine minutes and eight seconds. This represents the longest wait time in the past three years.

Former Dunfermline MP and current North East Fife MSP, Willie Rennie, said: “People in life-threatening situations need to know that someone will be there to help them when they need it.

“Tragically, and despite the best efforts of hard-pressed medics all across Fife, this is simply not happening.

“It is unforgivable that the Scottish Government continues to roll out the tired excuse of COVID. Even the former chief executive of NHS Scotland, Paul Gray, has said that a pressure cooker crisis was coming regardless of the pandemic."

On average, 53 per cent of patients in the most critical level of ambulance calls are experiencing cardiac arrest.

He continued: “Anyone can see that this is likely to be one of the hardest winters the NHS has ever faced. Staff are already overwhelmed and patients are already suffering.

“The Scottish Government have continuously ignored the warnings of ambulance staff. They have also opposed and voted down Scottish Liberal Democrat proposals to tackle the crisis such as a staff burnout prevention plan.

“The Health Secretary must fundamentally change his approach and get control of the crisis. If he does not, he will have to go because patients and staff in Fife have been taken for granted for far too long.”

A Scottish Ambulance Service spokesperson said: “Thirty-day survival rates for our most seriously-ill patients are at their highest-ever level, which is due to the enhanced training and education of our staff and volunteers, our efforts to increase CPR skills, and the wide range of assets we have available to deploy across the country to help patients.

"The response time quoted is an average and will include calls which have started as a lower-call category, for example amber or yellow, and were then subsequently upgraded.

"We continually look for opportunities to improve our response times and we have recently recruited 26 extra frontline staff in the Fife area and are working closely with hospitals which experience delays in accepting ambulance patients."

A Scottish Government spokesperson added: “Patient safety remains our priority and we apologise to anyone who has experienced a long wait.

“Despite a rise in demand for higher-acuity calls, the ambulance service responded to over 68 per cent of their highest priority calls in under 10 minutes and over 99 per cent in under 30 minutes in 2021/22.”