NHS’ New Year’s glitch that may have caused patient’s death

The NHS and London Ambulance Service suffered technical problems that caused delays which may have caused a patient’s death over the New Year period.

A separate inquiry was launched into whether the technical problems was a contributory factor to a patient’s death. The crashing of a computer meant that control centre employees had to use the old-fashioned method of pen and paper to take down emergency 999 calls for approximately 5 hours, which has been linked to the death.

5-hour delay

Ambulance chiefs were apologetic for those who experienced the delay and assured them that the investigation was being treated “very seriously”.

Although the system was down from 12:30am to 5:15am, Director of Operations Paul Woodrow seemed fairly relaxed about the matter, saying:

“…our control room staff are fully trained and practised in using a manual back-up system.”

Mr Woodrow continued to make reassurances that they continued to make their patients a key priority; assessing their needs as usual.

He remained generally tight-lipped on the matter, saying:

“…it would not be right for us to predict the outcome of this investigation until it is complete.”

The question remains as to whether he doesn’t want to claim responsibility for the mishap, as that would automatically insinuate that they were negligent.

Second glitch in two months

London’s NHS Improvement Executive, Steve Russell, visited the London Ambulance Service control centre and reported that the system had crashed twice in 2 months.

The first crash happened at the end of November 2016, and it was reported that around 1,000 calls were affected when the system went down midday. Ambulance chiefs disclosed that some patients waited longer for an ambulance as the call had to be relayed to the ambulance crew by radio rather than electronically. This is thought to have had a knock-on effect on the crew who relied heavily on street maps rather than being guided by a computer system.

Mr Woodrow highlighted the deficiencies in the paper-based system and acknowledged that it wasn’t as efficient as a computer system. This could’ve been a factor as to why the NHS has not hit their response-time target for 2 years running; their target is to reach 70% of the most serious calls within 8 minutes.

Why are the systems failing?

The failure of the computer system on New Year’s Day drew more criticism from Malcolm Alexander, the Chairman of the London Ambulance Services Patients’ Forum. Mr Alexander was keen to find out why the system failed:

“…we want to know why this system, which cost so much money and is supposed to be so effective, is not fail-safe.”

He also notes that there must be improvements as soon as possible in the sudden event that there’s a huge pressure on the system e.g. a major disaster.

Reassurances

The Deputy Director of Operations, Kevin Bate, said:

“…every year we work closely with St. John Ambulance at temporary treatment centres to ensure people out celebrating receive the most appropriate medical care as quickly as possible.”

Though Mr Bate is trying to reassure patients and healthcare regulators that they have a back-up plan, the underlying fact is that their system went down, and it could’ve been the major factor in the death of a patient.

Though there was only one reported death from the technical glitch, Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for Health, denies claims that there’s a “humanitarian crisis” in the NHS. This is following the fact that London doctors have reported that patients have been waiting on trolleys for over 24 hours due to a shortage of hospital beds. The Evening Standard reports that North Middlesex and Whittington hospitals were short on beds around the festive period too.