Official Report 1065KB pdf
National Health Service (Ambulance Turnaround Times)
To ask the Scottish Government what action is being taken to reduce ambulance turnaround times at hospitals, in light of figures showing that so far in 2025 more than half of conveyances recorded a turnaround time of longer than 45 minutes. (S6T-02591)
Improving access to urgent care services is a key priority for the Scottish Government. On 31 March 2025, we published the NHS Scotland operational improvement plan, which sets out how we plan to improve access to treatment, including in urgent care settings. As part of our wider £21.7 billion investment in health and social care services, the plan includes an additional £200 million to reduce waiting times and improve patient flow through hospitals, which will lead to a reduction in ambulance turnaround times and in delayed discharges. We are supporting boards to strengthen facilities such as flow navigation centres, so that they are able to refer patients to more services and avoid their unnecessary conveyance to hospital in ambulances.
The cabinet secretary will agree that, although our paramedics do a wonderful job, they simply cannot cope with the scale of the challenge. This is the fifth recovery plan that has been published in the past four years, and none of them has worked so far. For example, in Aberdeen, an ambulance waited for more than 15 hours outside a hospital. In Ayrshire and Arran, one waited for 15 hours. In Glasgow, an ambulance waited for nearly 10 hours outside the Queen Elizabeth hospital. All of that is happening because our accident and emergency departments are bursting at the seams. Does the cabinet secretary agree that that is simply not acceptable? Will he set a maximum time by which ambulance patients must be admitted to hospital rather than queuing outside?
I agree with Jackie Baillie on a number of those points. The incredible work that our Scottish Ambulance Service staff do is well recognised by me, and my gratitude goes to them. They go to remarkable, incredible lengths in serving the people whom we also seek to serve.
On Ms Baillie’s point about accident and emergency bursting at the seams, I say that what we are seeing is the pressure in the whole system contributing to pressures in particular parts of it, of which the Scottish Ambulance Service is one. That is why the operational improvement plan is focused not just on one area but on social care, general practice and primary care, on addressing delayed discharge and on providing additional capacity through frailty services adjacent to accident and emergency, as well as on providing additional capacity to reduce delayed discharge, where progress is happening.
I agree with the member that any undue delay to people being able to access services is unacceptable. That is why we are making a concerted effort to reduce the pressures that we are seeing across the system.
The cabinet secretary should tell that to the almost 2,000 people who are stuck in a hospital due to delayed discharge.
Not only are ambulances unable to attend calls, doctors cannot get jobs, despite record-high waiting lists for treatment, and the Royal College of Psychiatrists is reporting a £240 million shortfall in the face of a mental health emergency. The Scottish National Party has been in power for 18 years now. It has presided over this crisis. If it had an idea of how to fix it, surely we would have seen it by now.
On the ambulance turnaround times that we are seeing, the investments that we are making in relation to all the aspects that Jackie Baillie speaks to are having an impact, including a substantial reduction in delayed discharge from the 2,000 figure that she quotes—delayed discharge was at its peak around Christmas time, but it is below that position now.
Of course, we must support our general practitioners and we must support our wider system. That is the very point that I was making when I said that we need to support our ambulance service to respond. The performance of our ambulance service is robust in terms of the response times of ambulance service colleagues. The median purple incident response time is at 6 minutes 45 seconds, and we are seeing an improvement in that picture.
I will do everything that I can to make sure that the whole system responds to lessen the pressure on our ambulance service, for exactly the reasons that Jackie Baillie sets out.
I receive regular reports of ambulances queued for a long time outside Victoria hospital in Kirkcaldy. The Government wasted endless amounts of time and energy on the centralisation of the care service, but it neglected the reform that the sector requires. That is the central problem. We do not have the flow through the hospital into social care. Where is the brand-new plan to sort out social care in Scotland?
I have already referenced a significant amount of intervention. The operational improvement plan, which was published earlier this year, will address some of the concerns that Mr Rennie is highlighting. It will increase the capacity of hospital at home and social care services, and it will ensure that we have call-before-you-convey services for our ambulance service. It will make sure that we have a whole-system response that looks after the individual patient, as opposed to the other way around.
There is already significant investment going on, and, in relation to oversight, we now have a national social care advisory board, which is ensuring that we respond to the needs of the social care system, because it is integral to the performance of our health service.
There are enormous disparities in turnaround times between health boards, yet we know that delayed discharge is endemic across all the health boards.
On the cabinet secretary’s assessment, why are the turnaround times in some health boards significantly lower than in others? Are there lessons or practices that are not being shared across the health boards that would improve the situation? Someone, somewhere is getting it right but, in other places, it is not happening.
The member is absolutely right that the variance in delayed discharge performance among our health and social care partnerships is far too wide. The First Minister has said that on countless occasions, as have I. That is why the new Minister for Social Care and Mental Wellbeing and I have a regular meeting with the health and social care partnerships, so that we can ensure that best practice is learned across the system.
We are working with our health boards to improve the clinical pathways to ensure that patients who can be moved through the system quickly are discharged quickly. We do not see the picture that the member paints of delayed discharge being endemic across all parts of the system, because there is good performance in some parts of it. I want to learn from those best-performing areas to ensure that we can take that best practice to the areas that are most challenged. We are providing financial and practical support in order to do just that.
Criminal Records (Transgender Prisoners)
To ask the Scottish Government how many transgender prisoners have had their criminal records erased, following a self-identification process and changing of their birth name. (S6T-02590)
Let me be clear that a change of name does not, under any circumstances, alter a person’s criminal record. All criminal records are maintained in accordance with established retention and sharing protocols and remain fully accessible to the justice system—including for disclosure in court proceedings where appropriate.
Police Scotland has acknowledged an error in one case, which was reported in the media, and it acknowledges that that should not have occurred. I have sought and received assurances from Police Scotland that that was an isolated incident that did not reflect broader issues in its recording practices. I have also asked Police Scotland to ensure that steps will be taken to review systems and procedures in the light of the reported case.
This should not have happened in the first place. We are talking about convicted criminals—some of them violent or sexual offenders—whose records could, at any point, be obscured through self-identification and a legal name change. The cabinet secretary needs to provide clarity—I am pleased that she did so in her response—because we cannot have further instances happening in the future. We need to ensure that victims, women’s groups and the wider public have faith in the justice system when the Government looks at such issues, because we need to know whether there have been instances of authorities having missed a person’s criminal record because they changed their gender. Is the cabinet secretary absolutely sure that that instance was an isolated one? Is she sure that we will not return to the chamber to hear of any more such instances in the future?
As Police Scotland has clearly stated, that situation should not have happened. It is crucial to be very clear that a person’s gender identity, legal gender status or, indeed, name does not in any way prevent the disclosure of relevant criminal information. According to the information that I have received from Police Scotland, there was an error in one case and a failure to disclose, which was not a reflection on data recording systems. The information was there on the criminal history record. I hope that I have conveyed in the strongest possible terms the assurances that I have received from Police Scotland on what is a very important matter.
My next question relates to the point about data. Campaigners have called for a review of Police Scotland and Crown Office policy following the story that emerged in the press at the weekend. Given that a name change allowed an individual to separate himself from his criminal past, there needs to be a further investigation into the processes that Police Scotland and the Crown Office followed. We should not have had to wait until the initial incident took place and was reported in the press.
Record keeping is vital, especially in circumstances in which an individual changes—or can change—their name. Will the cabinet secretary commit to ending any practices by which a criminal can obscure their criminal record via a change of name or gender, to stop convicts hiding in plain sight before the authorities? Most importantly, can the cabinet secretary assure me and other members that safeguards will ensure that records are not misplaced in the system—which, as it stands, may be open to abuse, as we have seen through the story that was reported in the press?
To be crystal clear, there can be no separation of any individual—irrespective of their gender, sexual identity or how often they might change their name—from their criminal past. That is because, irrespective of the reason for any name change, knowing someone’s identity is absolutely critical. As has been narrated, there was a failure to disclose. Disclosure responsibilities are crucially important.
The matter was rectified. I have been assured that it is not a reflection on data recording systems. As is widely understood and as has been discussed in the chamber, Police Scotland is undertaking a wider, holistic review of recording issues in relation to trans people.
I do not believe that this was a mere administrative error. I believe—and I think that I have evidence to support this—that there is systemic data corruption, which has been driven by years of unlawful self-ID policy.
I also believe that the public deserve to know how many criminals have been allowed to reinvent themselves through inaccurate data capture and rewritten or obscured criminal records, which, of course, disconnect identifying data from offending histories. Data integrity is the very foundation of safeguarding. Without it, victims are failed, and the public are put at risk.
I heard what the cabinet secretary said this afternoon about ordering a review, but I ask her to go further. I ask her to order a full and complete audit of all that data corruption, to fix it and, finally, to bring it out into the public realm.
It is important for the public, who might be listening, to know that criminal records cannot be and are not rewritten or erased on the basis of gender identity. A legal change of name or the possession of a gender recognition certificate does not alter the substance of a criminal record, and nor does it prevent the justice system from accessing or disclosing relevant conviction history.
The management and updating of criminal records is, of course, an operational matter for Police Scotland, which is bound by existing law and is subject to regular audit and oversight. Where concerns have arisen, I have requested clarity from relevant justice partners to ensure that public confidence is upheld.
I note that the cabinet secretary used the words “gender” and “sexual identity”. Before asking my question, I will say that any legal action that was brought against the Scottish Prison Service in respect of its policies would be brought against the Scottish ministers. Have the Scottish Prison Service’s policies been brought into line with the Supreme Court judgment in For Women Scotland Ltd v the Scottish ministers?
As a minister, I would never comment on live proceedings, but, again, I cannot stress more how clear I have been and how clear the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice and other ministers have been that there is a Supreme Court judgment. We are all, at pace, working through the implications for implementation. Of course, we await the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s code of practice, which it is consulting on. A great amount of work is going on across the length and breadth of Government to ensure that, once we receive further information from the EHRC, we are ready for implementation. We are in a state of readiness to act once further information comes our way.
This is clearly a shambles. We know that dangerous male offenders have gamed the Scottish National Party system to serve their sentences in women’s prisons, and now they are getting their criminal records wiped. The chair of the EHRC said that the law that the Supreme Court ruling sets out is “unambiguous” and “effective immediately” and that
“Those with duties under the Equality Act should be following it”.
I wrote to Police Scotland and the Scottish Prison Service to demand that they comply with the Supreme Court ruling, but their response showed that they are still stalling. Given the latest outrage, will ministers now finally intervene, remove all biological men from women’s prisons and ensure that all public bodies are following the law?
It is utterly inaccurate, misleading and somewhat disingenuous—if not disgraceful—to suggest that Police Scotland wipes criminal records. Under no circumstances does Police Scotland wipe criminal records, and under no circumstances can anyone, irrespective of their name or status—whether they are male, female or transgender—escape from a criminal past. They cannot do so.
With regard to the second part of Ms Dowey’s question, right now, the Scottish Government is making the necessary preparations for implementation.
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