LABOUR has called on Scotland’s SNP government to end the hospital logjam which has left more than half of ambulances arriving at Scottish hospitals stranded there for more than three quarters of an hour.

Scottish Ambulance Service figures released to the party under freedom of information show that so far in 2025, 55 per cent of ambulances are stuck in this way, effectively leaving paramedics unavailable for long periods and lengthening response times amid huge pressures on the service.

Waits experienced so far this year include 15 hours and 22 minutes outside Aberdeen University Hospital and a 14-hour 54-minute delay for one paramedic team at University Hospital, Ayr.

The data fits into a trend which has seen percentages waiting over 45 minutes grow every year from 2019, when it stood at 16 per cent, to 52 per cent recorded in the last full year, 2024, despite the number of ambulance journeys to hospital over that time falling by 9,156.

 Calling for action to deal with the root causes of the delays, Scottish Labour’s health spokeswoman Jackie Baillie said: ”Ambulances are a lifeline at a time of desperate need, but these figures show that year after year, the SNP has let emergency services slide.

“Our paramedics do a tremendous job, but rather than responding to desperate patients, ambulances are stuck at the doors of A&E because the SNP has failed to tackle the chaos within.

“Scottish Labour will free up hospital beds and restore the family doctor so that patients at A&E can be treated in a timely manner and paramedics can do the job they were trained for.”

The Scottish government was contacted for comment.