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Ambulance service's computers crash on busy Saturday night
Peter Dominiczak and Benedict Moore-Bridger23.03.09
LONDON ambulances' computer system, which controls all medical 999 calls, crashed during one of its busiest nights of the year so far, the Standard has learned.
The breakdown for almost two hours on Saturday night threw London Ambulance Service's emergency response into chaos, forcing patients to wait more than an hour for medical help.
Politicians have called for an urgent investigation.
The breakdown, which started at 10.40pm, meant that all 999 calls to the LAS had to be handled manually, until the failure was finally resolved just after 12.30am yesterday.
As a result of the crash, staff had to take messages by hand and use maps to communicate with paramedics.
As technicians struggled to repair the computers, ambulance crews were told that calls made before the crash were stuck in the system and that details could not be retrieved until the fault had been fixed.
The Standard has learned that up to 25 patients had to wait for up to an hour for paramedics to arrive because of the fault with the computer-aided dispatch system, which feeds emergency calls into a computer and automatically alerts the nearest ambulance.
According to current government targets, 95 per cent of ambulances have to arrive at life-threatening or serious emergencies within 19 minutes of the 999 call being made.
LAS told the Standard they were urgently reviewing the cause of the computer failure.
Fears were growing today that patients lives could be put at risk if the system failed again.
It is not the first time that the LAS computer system has malfunctioned. In 1992, a crash was claimed to have cost between 10 and 20 lives.
Shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley today called for an urgent investigation into the failure.
He told the Standard: "After past problems with the introduction of computerised call handling this is a disturbing evidence of problems in the system. We will be looking for the team at the head of the London Ambulance Service to account for these events."
Deputy Mayor Richard Barnes, a member of the Greater London Authority health and public services committee, said: "For any catastrophic event there has to be a process that immediately deals with it, and a failure of this is a major concern."
An LAS spokesman said: "At approximately 10.40pm the service experienced technical problems with its computer system. We were able to maintain a normal service and provide excellent patient care on what was a very busy night. No calls were lost. We are not aware of any significant delays but that is something we will have to look into over the next few days."
The service receives up to 5,000 calls a day.
Reader views (2)
I left the LAS because of the way IT management was running the service into the ground. It's absorbing a lot of money to get little done, mainly with contract labour. I feel for the guys on the front line, the IT (and radio) support is lacking and changes aren't always for the right reasons.
The system crashes far more often than is reported in the media and health officals must know this. In my opinion the LAS is moving from an (imperfect) system to an unstable (imperfect) system.
- Dissolusioned, London
I was working when it all happened it was a disaster and this is not the first time either !Same thing happened 2 Sundays ago but worse ! The new computer system is a disaster. We are now being sent to standby out of the area we are supposed to be covering ! Honestly it is postcode lottery hether you live or die !!
- London Paramedic, London
