Security Bullet In
Communiques from the security front, sir
Friday 1 December 2006, 5:00 PM
Sat nav sends ambulance on 400 mile round trip
"The crew had been tasked with taking the male patient 12 miles across Essex from King George Hospital in Ilford to Mascalls Park Hospital near Brentwood - a 12 mile journey which should have taken about 30 minutes.
But a fault in the ambulance's on-board satellite navigation system sent the London Ambulance Service crew on an eight-hour round trip to Manchester.
A spokesman for the ambulance service said the crew set off in the early hours of Tuesday morning. They didn't reach Mascalls Park Hospital until the early afternoon.
He said the crew hadn't been to Mascalls Park before and only realised they were heading in the wrong direction when they reached the outskirts of Manchester."
Whoever said a blind reliance on the powers of technology was foolhardy? Plan B, anyone?
PreviousComments on this post
Operator error more likely than sat nav error methinks....
Open & Honest Communication .... I'll be bluntly truthful
Fire the crew for being both illiterate and stupid, and the driver who has full vision, (due to a windscreen), for being too dumb to realise that there was something wrong after 60minutes ...
Surely they should have realised that if they had not reached their destination within one hour that something was wrong ... or whilst they were travelling up the motorway passing the signs to the Midlands and "North", something was wrong.
I would honestly like to know whether the staff have been required to submit to an intelligence test which requires more than motor skills, and whether the patient is currently speaking with a lawyer.
The crews that staff our Ambulance service are fantastic, they experience danger every day, and work for very little pay; and certainly very little thanks. This story just taints them all with the same brush when they should not be.
If it had been April 1st I would have been rolling on the floor with laughter !
Arthur
