Reporters for The Sunday Telegraph have uncovered a ‘flaw’ in an automated system used by the ambulance service that suggests many emergency cases might have been downgraded automatically, leading to a delay in ambulance crews attending the scene of some incidents.

Emergency service call handlers follow automated advice supplied by a computer program that categorises the status of each emergency call according to the circumstances of an accident and the condition of the patient.

However, an investigation by The Sunday Telegraph has revealed a ‘critical danger’ in the software that is used by most ambulance services, meaning that 999 calls in which the patient lay unconscious and struggling to breathe following a fall from height of 6ft or more were downgraded and call handlers were advised not to send the most urgent response to the incident.

Reporters found that this ‘flaw’ might have been occurring for more than a decade and was exposed in May 2009, when 58-year-old Bonnie Mason fell more than 12ft. However, despite the fact she was unconscious and struggling to breathe, an ambulance crew did not arrive at the scene for 38 minutes and by the time paramedics were able to treat her, she could not be saved.

Ms Mason’s accident had been given a lower priority than a drunken person who had fallen on the pavement, reporters found. They also found that – although some call handlers in emergency response centres were told to override the flaw in the system – five out of 12 ambulance services stuck to the advice given by the automated program, meaning hundreds of incidents might not have received the necessary response and hundreds of patients could have died as a result.

It is thought the ‘flaw’ occurred after a government committee overseeing the use of computerised 999 software allocated a lower priority – a category B – to falls from height of 6ft or more than the category which the computer program’s makers recommended.

Spokesman for the College of Emergency Medicine, John Heywood, called the potential risks ‘devastating’:

‘Any system which isn’t prioritising accurately needs review because the consequences are so catastrophic.’

The Department of Health said the flaw had been ‘eliminated’ when the most recent version of the software was introduced last year. Doctors, politicians and charities are calling for an inquiry into how the error into categorising some 999 calls came about.

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