"Concerned by lack of ambulance"

Dear ophiuchusdt37,

Thank you for taking the time to share your experience. I’m very sorry to hear about the pain you were in and the distress caused by the uncertainty around ambulance availability. This clearly added to an already difficult situation, and I can appreciate how frustrating and worrying this must have been for you.

We understand how important it is for patients to feel supported and informed, especially when they are in severe pain and unsure of what’s happening next. Your feedback highlights concerns that we take seriously and I’d like to assure you that we are committed to learning from experiences like yours to improve the service we provide.

If you would find it helpful to discuss the care provided by the Scottish Ambulance Service in more detail, we would be more than happy to do so. You are welcome to email us at sas.feedback@nhs.scot. If you choose to get in touch, it would be helpful if you could include:

- The date, time, and address where the ambulance was expected to attend

-Your name

- Your CareOpinion username, so we can easily locate your story and share it with the relevant teams

Thank you again for raising these concerns. We hope you are now feeling more comfortable, and we wish you all the best in your recovery.

Warm regards,
Marie Kennedy
Patient Experience Manager
Scottish Ambulance Service

Dear Ophiuchusdt37

Thank you so much for taking the time to share your story on Care Opinion. I am truly sorry to hear that you had to call 111 due to being in severe pain. I hope you are feeling better now and please accept my well wishes.

From your feedback, I understand that multiple services were involved in your care. I am replying on behalf of NHS 24 and thought it might be helpful to offer some clarification about our role. When someone contacts our 111 service, our responsibility is to assess and triage their symptoms at the time of the call. This helps us determine the most appropriate route for onward care. If we assess that an ambulance is needed, we pass the patient’s details onto the Scottish Ambulance Service who will then take over responsibility for the patient’s care, including arranging/dispatching the ambulance, follow up calls and providing updates.

However, I would be more than happy to review your call into our 111 service to ensure your details were passed on correctly from NHS 24. If you are comfortable doing so, you can contact me at Patient.Experience@nhs24.scot.nhs.uk to share some additional information, including your Care Opinion Username and this will allow me to look into this further for you.

Kind Regards

Lynne