BT service malfunction shuts down Scottish Ambulance Service
A system malfunction left the Scottish Ambulance Service unable to receive 999 calls for up to several hours as the phone lines experienced difficulties.
The incident, which occurred on 21 July, caused no emergency calls to go through to the service’s three Scottish call centres for several hours. Callers had to be diverted to Belfast and northern England for all emergency calls.
Bosses of the ambulance service and BT said that the calls were all received and that no patients had been affected by the incident. Scottish Labour has called for an investigation into the cause of the disruption.
The system is currently provided for by BT so that the Scottish Ambulance Service can answer the 999 calls at one of its three centres in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Inverness. The problem was first located at the centre in Inverness in the early morning hours followed by Edinburgh and then finally Glasgow.
However, following the discovery of the incident, all three centres were back and operational by mid-afternoon on the same day. A spokesperson for BT said that the buddy system was in place for the centres and any such failure has special procedures provided for. He added that contingency plans for events such as these went smoothly and calls were immediately diverted to other operators in Northern Ireland and other areas.
He also added that no calls were lost during the malfunction of the system. According to BT the Glasgow switch had to be rebooted and specialist engineers dispatched to all three sites. Normal services were able to resume by the early evening of the 21st.
A spokeswoman for the ambulance service said that it was reassuring to the operators that all emergency plans for such an event went smoothly and that there was little disruption for patients. She added that the incident has been reviewed with BT and that a new action plan is in place to ensure no repeat incidents of this nature.