Vital Scots ambulance equipment failing every day as fears raised lives may be lost

Five pieces of equipment in Scotland’s ambulances fail every day - causing patients potential harm or even death.Last year there were 1,826 such equipment failures within the Scottish Ambulance Service.The number has more than tripled since 2018 when there were 553 recorded.The incidents were recorded on Datix - a web-based software system used by healthcare organisations to report incidents and manage risk.It is used to gather information about processes and errors and to alert the healthcare system to risks which could lead to harm or death.Ambulances carry vital equipment including defibrillators, analgesics like air and gas and a suction unit for aid in choking incidents.

Failures in any one of them could cause a serious risk of harm.Did you know you can keep up to date with the latest news by signing up to our daily newsletter?We send a morning and lunchtime newsletter covering the latest headlines every day.We also send coronavirus updates at 5pm on weekdays, and a round up of the week's must-read stories on Sunday afternoons.Signing up is simple, easy and free.You can pop your email address into the sign up box above, hit Subscribe and we'll do the rest.Alternatively, you can sign up and check out the rest of our newsletters here.The Freedom of Information Request by the Scottish Labour Party found there has been a steady rise in incidents over the last five years.In 2019 there were 690 incidents, 2020 -747, 2021 - 1463 and 2022 - 1681.One ambulance insider suggested one of the main problems could lie with defibrillators.He said: “We took over new defibrillators at that time and staff are starting to notice bits aren’t working.“We are supposed to get time to check over equipment at the start of a shift but we