FOI 25-087 Blackridge and Shotts Incident Data
Freedom of Information Request
- Reference
- FOI 25-087 Blackridge and Shotts Incident Data
- Request Date
- 19 Feb 2025
- Response Date
- 14 Mar 2025
- Information Requested
Good afternoon I would request the undernoted information, please, for the period 1 January 2023 to 31 December 2024: (1) For incidents in Blackridge, West Lothian - nature of incident - call type/category - location of incident - time call received - time resource mobilised - type of resource - resource home station - resource location when mobilised - time resource mobile to incident - time resource arrived at scene - time resource transported patient to hospital - time resource arrived at hospital - time resource available (2) For incidents in
Shotts, North Lanarkshire - nature of incident - call type/category - location of incident - time call received - time resource mobilised - type of resource - resource home station - resource location when mobilised - time resource mobile to incident - time resource arrived at scene - time resource transported patient to hospital - time resource arrived at hospital - time resource available I would be obliged if you could provide this information in the form of a spreadsheet. Many thanks for your assistance
- Response
The Scottish Ambulance service has a duty, under the Data Protection Act, to avoid directly or indirectly revealing any personal details, by providing the information requested above there could be the potential for incidents to become identifiable.
Public authorities are not required to create information in order to answer a request. There’s a distinction between creating new information, and compiling information. Where a request can be answered by compiling information from readily-available resources held by the public authority, this is not the same as creating new information. However, if collation of the information would require skill and complex judgement, the information is not held.
To provide the type of resource, resource home station and resource location when mobilised, would require the Scottish Ambulance Service to review every incident attended individually and cross-check vehicle callsigns with stations all of which are held on multiple systems. The Scottish Ambulance Service is a national service and ambulances are dispatched to incidents depending on the demand and capacity.
I have concluded that we are unable to produce this information without complex skill and judgement. It is for this reason we have applied section 17 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 as information not held.
The attached sheet detailing the information requested above.
Tab 1 – Demand
The first table details all the emergency incidents in Shotts and Blackridge broken down by year. The National Records of Scotland (NRS) field has been used to identify incidents geographically in the two towns.
The nature of the incident has been provided as ‘Chief Complaint’. 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.
Tab 2 – Response Times
This table details the median1 and 90th percentile2 response times to incidents in Blackridge and Shotts broken down into call colour.
The response times show total time and do not factor in possible upgrading or downgrading that may occur depending on the patient condition. Times are inclusive of all areas, meaning, as a national service, times are inclusive of all types of locations. These will include areas that may have a difficult access and or in a remote location.
For example, a call may start out as a non-emergency (timed admission) call, subsequently be upgraded to a purple call much later, but only the total time from the first call received is shown. The starting point is always set for the colour category first determined, not the final colour category assigned.
Where delays occur, clinical advisors maintain contact with the patient, checking their condition on an ongoing basis, and upgrading when appropriate.
The Call Categories are:
Purple: Our most critically ill patients. This is where a patient is identified as having a 10% or more chance of having a cardiac arrest. The actual cardiac arrest rate across this category is approximately 53%.
Red: Our next most serious category where a patient is identified as having a likelihood of cardiac arrest between 1% and 9.9%, or having a need for resuscitation interventions such as airway management above 2%. Currently the cardiac arrest rate in this category is approximately 1.5%.
Amber: where a patient is likely to need diagnosis and transport to hospital or specialist care. The cardiac arrest rates for all of these codes is less than 0.5%.
Yellow: a patient who has a need for care but has a very low likelihood of requiring life-saving interventions. For example, patients who have tripped or fallen but not sustained any serious injury.
Tab 3 – Time on Scene
This information has been provided for emergency incidents only detailing the average time on scene of a resource and the average service time.
The ‘Service Time’ has been calculated by the time the resource is allocated to an incident to the time it is cleared.
The ‘Time on Scene’ has been calculated by the time the resource arrived on scene to the time the resource has left scene or been cleared.
Tab 4 – Turnaround Time
This tab details the emergency turnaround times and ‘Time at Hospital’ for key hospitals for incidents in Blackridge and Shotts.
The ‘Time to Hospital’ has been calculated from when the resource left the scene to the time the resource arrived at the destination.
The Turnaround time is calculated from when an ambulance arrives at hospital to the point of departure. These turnaround times are affected by a wide range of factors, including ambulance staff cleaning vehicles following patient transportation, supporting the ongoing care of the patient and on occasions providing statements to the police.
Our local management teams are working closely with Health Boards to ensure that ambulances are released as quickly as possible
- Response Documents
