On Reporting Scotland Down all day today, a story fed to them and all the MSM, by the Lib Dems – you know Alex Cole-Hamilton and…..whoever.

It’s claimed ambulance staff are sacrificing their own health as figures reveal almost 170 000 hours were lost to mental health absences in a year. Data obtained by the Scottish Liberal Democrats through freedom of information requests revealed the total between July 2021 and June this year. They say workers that were off due to anxiety, stress, depression or other psychiatric illness. The Government says £12 million has been made available to support NHS workers’ mental health.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/live/bbcone

So 170 000 hours? That’s around 20 000 shifts (8-12 hours). How many staff? ‘More than 5 000’ according to SAS. So, around 4 to 5 days off per year, per staff member, justified by, in some cases, only ‘stress’.

Here are the actual data:

Notice anything? No obvious trend to worry about?

The Lib Dems are also Panda-chasing with an FoI request in for police officer absences of the same kind: https://www.policeprofessional.com/news/mental-health-abscences-soar-at-police-scotland/

The numbers are not so big. That may be why they’re not headlining.