Scottish ambulance staff have worked more than 2.7 million hours of overtime, costing taxpayers almost £74 million - with concerns raised the pressures are “pushing already exhausted staff beyond breaking point”.
The statistics come amid separate analysis of cancer waiting times showing patients waited a year for treatment to begin and a warning from a senior doctor that “the Scottish NHS is struggling to provide the care patients need, when they need it”.
New statistics revealed under freedom of information legislation, showed 2,718,922 hours of overtime were worked by paramedics, ambulance technicians, care assistants and specialist nurses between 2020 and 2024.
Scottish Conservative health spokesman, Dr Sandesh Gulhane, said the situation was “completely unacceptable”, and claimed the ambulance service was being “kept afloat” by overtime.
He added: “This will be pushing already exhausted staff beyond breaking point and is completely unsustainable.
“Relying on overstretched staff to plug gaps in shift will be putting staff as well as patients at serious risk.
“Ambulance crews have been left dangerously understaffed because of years of dire workforce planning by successive SNP health secretaries who are clueless to the scale of the emergency facing them.”
Source: The Scotsman, 15 July 2025
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