Overview of London Ambulance System (Las) Disaster, 1992 Essay Example

of public safety.These services include the following; •Call input, dispatching, status maintenance •Handling incident details and locations •Field unit status and tracking •Call resolution and disposition It also include interfaces that permits the software to provide services to dispatchers, call takers and field personnel with respect to control and use of analogue radio and telephony equipment. (Cited www. erichmusick.

com/writings/06/las_failure. html) The London Ambulance Service decided to put their new CAD system in to operation on October 26th, 1992.After a few hours into operation it became observable to the ambulance crews and control room staff that there is something wrong with the new system. The crisis was a high event in the UK news during that time, which claimed a number of patients have died as a result of the system.

The following problems occurred within the CAD system when it was first in operation: •Patient’s emergency calls that were accepted appeared to be getting lost in the system caused an increasing number of call duplications. •Rise in number of calls led to the callers being held by the call-queuing system for up to 30 minutes before they were dealt with.At some point earlier calls were overwritten by newer emergency calls coming into the system, leaving a large number of unanswered calls which caused a number of exception messages. •The ambulance allocation system failed to recognize certain roads. Staffs had to revert to using a map and telephone to deal with ambulance dispatches, which ultimately led to more delays. •There was a communication failure between the ambulances and the system.

Ambulance either arrived late, did not arrive at all or arrive two at the same

time. (Cited www. comp. lancs. ac.

uk/computing/resources/IanS/SE7/CaseStudies/LondonAmbulance/LASFailure. pdf)