The service is part of the NHS Scotland and is responsible to giving medical services of all Scotland. It is funded directly by the Scottish Government Health Department.
It’s two main duties are the provision of a Paramedic Accident and Emergency Service to answer 999 calls and the Patient Transport Service which takes patient to and from their hospital engagements, discharges from hospitals and non-urgent transfers.
The headquarters is based in Edinburgh within the vicinity of Royal Edinburgh Hospital on Tipperlin Road. In addition, the Service is split into 5 divisions which are:
- North Division which covers Highlands, Western Isles, Grampian, Orkney and Shetland
- East Central Division which covers Fife, Forth Valley and Tayside
- West Central which covers Greater Glasgow, and Lanarkshire
- South East Division which covers Edinburgh, Lothian and Borders
- South West Division which covers Argyll, Argyll Islands, Clyde Islands, Ayrshire, Dumfries and Galloway.
Moreover, the service is well-equipped with latest facilities that cater to patients’ needs. The Patient Transport Vehicles carries almost 1.6 million annually. This is very important to patients who are physically or medically unfit to travel. Ambulance Care Assistants manned the PTVs and they are very well trained to look after the patients during the travel to or from the hospitals.
The service has the only government-supported helicopter, operating under contract by Gama Aviation. The “Air-Wing” gives emergency assistance and transfers to remote areas of Scotland. In fact in the past 2 years, it transported 4,004 missions.
The service has SORT or Special Operations Response Teams which are installed in North, East and West of Scotland. The team is responsible to responding major accidents.
Also, the service has 3 Emergency Medical Dispatch Centers that provides Command and Control and 999 Call Taking equipments and they are located in Cardonald, South Queensferry and Inverness. All stations operate 24 hours daily and 365 days a year.
