NHS 24 “still cannot cope” with a growing crisis in the health system, Scottish Labour warned yesterday as damning new figures revealed that nearly one in four calls have gone unanswered.

A freedom of information request from Labour showed that of the 785,456 calls made to the out-of-hours and triage non-emergency number in the last five months, 180,940 (23 per cent) were abandoned.

The rate of unanswered calls on a monthly basis reached 27.5 per cent in March and 27 per cent in June.

The data also shows the average waiting time when contacting the service was just over 22 minutes in June – an increase of nearly five minutes compared to January’s 17-and-a-half minutes.

That is despite the launch of a new NHS 24 call centre in Dundee, which was announced in January as a move to “help facilitate the increase in demand for the NHS 24 service.”

Scottish Labour public health spokesman Paul O’Kane said: “The extra investment in NHS 24 was welcome, but sticking plasters won’t do the trick as long as the SNP keep letting our NHS fall deeper into chaos.

“Despite the best efforts of hardworking NHS staff, people are being bounced from pillar to post because of dangerous SNP incompetence.”

NHS 24 director of service delivery Janice Houston said: “As with the rest of the NHS in Scotland, NHS 24 is experiencing very high call volumes to the 111 service.

“Continued high demand for the 111 service means that, at times, people have experienced a longer wait time for their calls to be answered.

“As with all NHS boards, we have a number of staff off sick with Covid.

“However, our colleagues continue to work tirelessly, with a commitment to deliver safe and effective services 24/7, and answer every call as quickly as possible.”