Trainee 999 medic suspended after refusing to go to aid of dying baby

Published on Friday 25 February 2011 15:35

THE Scottish Ambulance Service was last night facing fresh calls for an independent inquiry after the suspension of a trainee technician who refused to answer a call to help a dying baby.

It is understood that the trainee, a 28-year-old female, failed to respond to the call because her partner had not turned up for his shift.

It was also revealed yesterday that there was a crucial delay of 12 minutes in other ambulance crews responding to the emergency because a BT operator transferred the 999 message to an ambulance centre in England after being given the incorrect address by another telephone company.

The first ambulance crew reached the baby's home seven minutes after the 999 call was correctly routed to the Scottish Ambulance Service. They were unable to save the baby, who is understood to have been a victim of cot death.

A spokesman for the Scottish Ambulance Service confirmed yesterday that a member of staff had been suspended pending an internal inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the death of the baby on 3 January.

In October, an ambulance technician was suspended after he took a tea break and refused to respond to an emergency call in which a woman died of a heart attack just 800 yards from the depot where he was stationed in the Speyside village of Tomintoul.

• Fatal case

Murdo Fraser, the Scottish Conservatives' health spokesman, called for a fatal accident inquiry into the baby's death. He said: "There has clearly been a major breakdown in procedure to let this incident occur, firstly from BT, but then more worryingly from the paramedic asked to accept the 999 call.

"When people in distress phone for an emergency service, they expect and require assistance as soon as possible. The least we should expect is that emergency calls when made are connected to the right area. We now need assurances from the Scottish Ambulance Service that there will be no repetition of these events.

"There is a broader issue here which is much more serious, which is how the ambulance service deals with urgent calls and whether they have proper resources to deal with them."

Cathy Peattie, the Labour MSP for Falkirk East, said she had been told by senior officials at the Scottish Ambulance Service that there had been a 12-minute delay in the 999 call being correctly routed to the service's emergency centre in Edinburgh.

She said: "I have been told that the call was routed to Bradford and that it took 12 minutes before the ambulance service in Scotland could respond. Precious time was wasted."

Ms Peattie added: "There is an ongoing inquiry and I have asked to be kept up to date.As part of that, we need to look at BT's emergency service to find how the call was rerouted to England when it should have been going to somewhere local.

"It really worries me that this could have happened. The implications could be devastating and clearly have been for that family and that poor baby."

A spokesman for the Scottish Ambulance Service said: "There was delay in response as BT transferred the initial 999 call to an ambulance service in England. Two local ambulance crews responded to the incident, the first arriving within approximately seven minutes from the time the call was passed to our emergency medical dispatch centre."

He added: "As well as the two local ambulances, a trainee technician was asked to respond; however due to the absence of their partner, she was a single resource at the time.

"The investigation is focused on establishing why the call was initially routed elsewhere by BT and the overall response.

"A member of staff has been suspended pending the outcome of the investigation and full clinical review."