WATCH: Buckie police rush sick man to hospital IN RIOT VAN

An exclusive MFR News investigation's exposed a shortage of ambulances in the North, which has even forced police officers to rush a patient to hospital in the back of their riot van.

On the second day of our week-long look into the North's over-stretched ambulance service, MFR News is asking where are our ambulances?

Our news team's local journalism work has exposed an apparent lack of vehicles and crews, fatigued staff, and long waits for rescuers to arrive in people's time of need.

WATCH: shocking revelations after anonymous interview with Moray ambulance insider...

A Moray whistleblower, whose identity MFR News is protecting, told us: "There’s an ambulance based in Forres, an ambulance based, in Elgin, one in Buckie, and then there’s reduced cover in Keith for half the day, and there are also vehicles in Dufftown and Tomintoul, although Dufftown and Tomintoul operate on an on-call basis, so they operate on shift through the day, then they’re on call through the night.

"I think people would be surprised how little cover there is in Elgin. Elgin only has one ambulance on the road for 16-hours of the day, and has two-ambulances on the road for just eight-hours of the day.

"Generally there's a call coming in every 2-hours to Elgin, but some of these calls - like a non-emergency hospital patient transfer to Aberdeen - will keep the vehicle out of the area for a minimum of four-hours.

"Currently Elgin are transferring 700-patients a year from Dr Grays Hospital in Elgin - the vast majority of which go to Aberdeen, but results in at least a four-hour spell when the vehicle’s away, with the calls coming in on average every 2-hours. That obviously leaves a lot of times when there is no cover at all.

LISTEN: MFR News reader John Callan brings you this extended report in the 1pm MFR 2 bulletin...

"In Aberdeen they are receiving a call for an ambulance approximately just over every 20-minutes, and they are also very short on resources, and the consequence of that is, the ambulances which are based in more rural areas - along the Banff and Buchan coast, and from Moray, and Aberdeenshire, are drawn into Aberdeen.

"Often they’ll have to take their own patients from their areas into Aberdeen, and then they literally can’t get out of Aberdeen, because the ambulance service policy is that they will always send the nearest appropriate resource to any call, so obviously once a rural vehicle is in Aberdeen, and is nearest to a call then they are obliged to send it.

"We’ll frequently do two, three, four emergencies in Aberdeen, and it’s not unheard of, after you’ve done those, to get back to Elgin, just in time for another transfer, and land up back in Aberdeen again.

"Obviously the stations that surround Aberdeen like Inverurie and Stonehaven will get calls to head from their areas into Aberdeen, and that obviously leaves their areas without cover, and if, for example, a call comes in to Inverurie and Inverurie are in Aberdeen, then the Huntly ambulance will probably be called to Inverurie, and then that obviously leaves a bigger area with no resourcing, and as time goes by all the rural ambulances get sucked into Aberdeen, and can’t escape.

"Dr Grays move several hundred patients a year, and this basically means that Elgin’s ambulance is on the A96 traveling to and fro Aberdeen for nearly 6-months of the year, and of course that would be fine if the transfers came in with a small gap in between them, but frequently one, two, three, four, transfers will all come in a relatively small space of time, and that’s when it really drains Moray of its resources.

"It’s not unusual for the Elgin ambulance to be sitting at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary parked next to the Buckie ambulance, parked next to the Keith ambulance, parked next to the Dufftown ambulance - with all of Moray’s ambulances being 70-miles away from where they’re based.

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"We’ve seen an increasing amount of distance that the ambulances are travelling to get to 999-calls, and it’s now not unusual for us to travel 40, 50, even 60-miles to 999-calls. The Elgin ambulance frequently responds to Banff and Macduff, and as far as Fraserburgh for 999-calls, because there are no other ambulances in the area, and there are times when the whole of the North East is a complete black hole, with no resources available - they’re all tied up either on 999-calls or with inter-hospital patient transfers, or NHS24 referrals.

"In recent weeks there was a call in Moray where the police had recognised they had someone who was seriously ill, and they phoned for the ambulance but there were none available. This happened close to Buckie, and the nearest available ambulance was in Forres. The police officers took the decision that they didn’t have time to wait, and they transferred the patient into the back of a police van, unconscious, and drove them to hospital themselves. This was a patient who was so ill they landed up in intensive care in Aberdeen.

"Often the police will be first on scene to a lot of the emergencies, particularly car accidents - as much as they do their best, it’s not really their job, and they don’t have the training to deal with these things, so they hold the fort as best they can. It puts an incredible pressure on them personally as well.

"Forres is also used to do quite a big proportion of the inter-hospital transfers. I think the Forres ambulance does nearly a third of the inter-hospital transfers, and it takes even longer for Forres to do it because it’s the wrong side of Elgin to Aberdeen. So the Forres ambulance might be away from Forres for 5/6-hours, which means that the people in Forres get a particularly poor level of service.

"The residents of Keith might not know, but they used to have an ambulance in Keith that provided 24/7 cover, and that’s been taken away and is now only operated for 12-hours of the day, so the people of Keith have lost their ambulance at night.

"The staff from Keith were moved to Huntly to make it a 24-hour station which it needed to be. But for 7-days a week, for 12-hours every night, Keith now no longer have ambulance cover.

"Buckie also used to have a second ambulance through the week - it used to operate from four until midnight as an extra resource to cover the busy time, and that was also taken away."

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FULL STATEMENT FROM SCOTTISH AMBULANCE SERVICE:

'Inter hospital transfers from Caithness to Raigmore have been increasing and our staff are working harder than ever before.

'We have recently increased staffing in Wick, Thurso, Bettyhill, Kinlochbervie and Golspie which has allowed us to improve cover and reduce on call working.

'We are working with staff and their union representatives to develop the detailed shift patterns to support the increase in cover, improve staff experience and patient care.

'We want to build on this recent investment and are supporting our staff, staff representatives, NHS Highland and the local community to develop sustainable solutions to changing demand.

'We were grateful for the opportunity to meet with CHAT, NHS Highland and local Councillors in February to explore new ways of working to help reduce pressure on the Service. We look forward to the follow up meeting at the end of the month.'

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