Satellite navigation sends ambulance 200 miles the wrong way

Friday, December 1, 2006
Ambulance

An ambulance crew transferring a patient to hospital were sent 200 miles in the wrong direction by a faulty satellite navigation system, it emerged today.

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.

The spokesman said: "We can confirm that a crew transferring a patient from King George's Hospital, Ilford, to Mascalls Park Hospital, Brentwood, in the early hours of Tuesday morning were misdirected as a result of an error with the mobile data terminal on the ambulance.

"We believe that the crew, who had not been to this particular hospital before, followed the directions given by the navigation system, without manually confirming their destination.

"We understand that they reached the outskirts of Manchester before realising they were heading to the wrong destination.

"The patient was in a comfortable condition at all times while in our care and he arrived safely at Mascalls Park Hospital early that afternoon.

"The problem with the navigation database is also now being fixed."