crews flew 3,849 missions. one helicopter and one king air are based at a gama aviation facility at glasgow airport. the other operating bases are inverness airport (helicopter) and aberdeen airport (king air). the aircraft based in glasgow are regularly used by the emergency medical retrieval service (emrs). the air ambulance service was occasionally featured as part of the channel 5 television documentary series highland emergency. charity-funded air ambulance in late 2010, a charity, scotland's charity air ambulance (scaa), was founded to provide a further air ambulance, based at perth airport to work alongside the state-funded aircraft. scaa commenced operations in may 2013 with a mbb bo 105 helicopter. since november 2015, scaa has operated a eurocopter ec135. the ec135 was previously operated by the state-funded service, until they replaced the fleet with h145 aircraft. the helicopter is crewed by scottish ambulance service paramedics, tasking is from the sas ambulance control centre at cardonald. in april 2018, it was announced by the charity that a drive was underway to raise funds to secure a second helicopter. (scaa holds assets and funds in excess of 12 million pounds.) this aircraft is now operational at aberdeen airport. special operations response team (sort) the sort service is similar to the hazardous area response team in other parts of the united kingdom. sort paramedics have the same scope of practice as a regular paramedic, however have an enhanced scope of practice in relation to personal protective equipment and other rescue equipment. they do not however carry nor administer ketamine. in 2010, the service established three teams of specialist accident & emergency ambulance personnel who were given specialist training. this £4.3 million initiative was to provide additional preparedness to be able to respond to large-scale hazardous incidents, such as those that might involve chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear material. the work was in concert with the uk government. in 2019, the sort services responded to 1,200 calls requiring specialist intervention, and supported a further 9,000 calls. as of october 2017 there are five sort teams; three full-time based in edinburgh, glasgow, and aberdeen, and two on-call teams in inverness and dumfries. these teams provide a specialist response to major incidents, and provide paramedic care in hostile environments. the team provides capability in arenas such as water rescue, safe working at height, search and rescue including the use of breathing apparatus, and confined space working. the sort teams also provide a full-time emergency decontamination and inner-cordon capability. scotstar with the remote towns and villages in scotland often being hours away from advanced medical treatment, scottish specialist transport and retrieval (scotstar) was setup incorporating paediatric and neo-natal retrieval and transfer teams and emrs. the scotstar service was set up on 1 april 2014 and transported 2,654 patients 2014–2015. the service uses multiple vehicles, either owned by the ambulance service or other organisations: specialist ambulances and cars, five air ambulances and hm coastguard helicopters. the service is based in glasgow. emrs (the emergency medical retrieval service) was created in 2004 by ten emergency medical consultants from glasgow and paisley. initially, the service provided aeromedical cover to six isolated hospitals within argyll and bute. the ten consultants only had £40,000 worth of funding for medical equipment. in its first year the service transported 40 patients. in years to follow, the clinical crew began to gather evidence for the life-saving impact and cost effectiveness of the service. following a successful 18-month trial period in the west of scotland funded by the scottish government, in 2010 the service was opened up to the whole of the country, after securing permanent funding. the service is currently staffed by 47 part-time retrieval consultants, 14 retrieval practitioners, and 14 registrars, carrying out around 1000 missions every year. training academy the service has its own dedicated training academy within the campus of glasgow caledonian university, which opened in june 2011. the facility has purpose built classrooms, lecture theatres, syndicate rooms and a clinical simulation area that recreates a 16-bed hospital ward and accident & emergency department allowing realistic interaction with other trainee healthcare professionals. from 1996 until april 2011, the service used its own dedicated training college located at barony castle in eddleston near peebles. set in 25 acres (100,000 m2) of formal gardens and woodlands, barony was a residential training and conference centre with 78 bedrooms that allowed the service to carry out all its training in house. between 1985 and 1996 it used the former redlands women's and children's hospital in glasgow's west end and prior to that the training school was based at bangour hospital before moving to gartloch hospital. facts and figures in year ended 31 march 2020, the service: responded to 542,213 accident and emergency incidents. carried out 606,015 non-emergency patient journeys. flew 3,732 air ambulance missions. controversy and challenges the scottish ambulance service has not been free from controversy over the years, especially recently: in 1999 it emerged that the financial director of the scottish ambulance service had previously been jailed for fraud. in 2017 the ambulance service was criticised for using an ancient fleet of ambulances, with nearly half having over 100,000 miles on them. in 2018 it was revealed that frontline staff had been working "dangerously long hours", with one staff member working a 36 hour long shift. this was described as a national scandal at the time. 2021 saw the scottish ambulance service struggle to staff frontline ambulances; seeking help from firefighters, the military, and non-medical trained drivers to crew ambulances attending 999 calls. a number of tragic stories emerged highlighting the personal cost of this crisis, including one patient who died after waiting 40 hours for an ambulance, and an elderly man who died on his driveway after waiting four and a half hours for an ambulance. in the same year it was also revealed that a number of senior nhs managers from the ambulance service were running a camper van hire business during work hours, while planning for the cop26 international conference. research published in 2022 demonstrated that four out of five scottish paramedics were considering quitting their jobs. it also revealed that 87% of staff do not feel valued by the scottish ambulance service. the same report highlighted a third of staff working shifts lasting 15–20 hours. the same year, a story was published in which a member of the public was asked to perform cpr on their relative, alone in the back of the ambulance without help from the ambulance crew while en route to hospital. in the summer of 2022 it was claimed that an ambulance service senior manager was suspended as a result of requesting that a member of control-room staff leave their post and collect him (and his family) from glasgow airport. in 2022 it also came to light that emrs have been deploying as a “red team” for the scottish ambulance service without a consultant on board.