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?


