'First come' 999 service to stay

The ambulance services has been examined

Scottish ministers are thought unlikely to prioritise ambulance calls, despite a report showing some people were using the service "like free taxis".

In June this year Holyrood's audit committee investigated the workings of the country's ambulance service.

It found that some people were faking illness or injury in order to use emergency ambulances in Glasgow similar to that of a taxis firm.

But Scotland¿s health department decided on Tuesday that the evidence was not overwhelming enough to take steps to ditch the first-come, first-served system.

In this regard the service is also looking at the scope for expanding the use made of other types of first response

Scottish Health Department report

Officials declared in their report: "A review will see the service consider the demands and objectives of the emergency ambulance service across Scotland covering the loadings and performance of all of its 152 ambulance stations.

"In this regard the service is also looking at the scope for expanding the use made of other types of first response."

But they added: "The department does not agree that the evidence for priority based dispatch is overwhelming."

Extra ambulances

The average ambulance response time is currently 9.5 minutes and the time in Glasgow 10 minutes.

The report said: "It needs to be clear therefore that priority dispatch will permit faster ambulance responses to the more serious incidents and will command the confidence of patients and the rest of the NHS.

"It is also important to recognise that implementing a full priority based dispatch system that does not result in a slower response time than at present to the less serious incidents may be difficult unless extra ambulances are provided."

MSPs on the Audit Committee were due to consider the health department report on Tuesday but this has been postponed until after March next year when the appraisal of priority based dispatch is completed.