AN INVESTIGATION is underway into the ‘overstretched’ London Ambulance Service after it admitted it was called to help fatally injured teenager George Verrier but did not turn up.
This confession comes just months after coroner Dr Roy Palmer warned Bromley lives were at risk due to overstretched ambulance services.
His comments came when presiding over the case of a woman who died in a house fire in St Mary Cray after an ambulance did not turn up.
Jeremy Hunt has been asked to launch an inquiry about how ambulance services respond to emergencies across the capital after two people died in a house fire in west London in July.
And News Shopper can reveal the problems with the ambulance service go back to at least February last year when a 53-year-old Beckenham man feared he was going to bleed to death when he had to wait for an hour.
The LAS is investigating why it did not send an ambulance when it was requested by the police after they found fatally injured George Verrier in Southborough Road at the junction of Blenheim Road, Bromley.
Police were called to the disturbance in Southborough Road at the junction of Blenheim Road
Despite receiving the call at 1.01am on September 1 an ambulance was not sent because the LAS was unable to respond.
No LAS staff attended the scene to treat the former Ravensbourne School pupil and the call was cancelled at 2.20am.
Instead 17-year-old George made his way to a friend’s house in Ferndale where he was found unconscious at 9.30am that morning.
He was airlifted to hospital where he was pronounced dead at 6.11pm.
Speaking to the Daily Mail his relative Lesley Herron, 58, said: "We don't know the facts yet but we feel he could have been saved.
"We want answers. The family wants answers. We just want to know if he could have been saved."
Yvonne Fisher died in a fire in her flat in Ranmore Path, St Mary Cray
Earlier this year south London coroner Dr Palmer wrote to London Ambulance Service’s chief executive Ann Radmore criticising the service in the case of Yvonne Fisher who died in a house fire.
The 45-year-old took an overdose at her flat in Ranmore Path, St Mary Cray, at around 9pm on July 21 last year before calling for an ambulance.
However the ambulance did not arrive until 10.52pm - by which time a deadly fire was raging - thought to have been started by a cigarette.
In Dr Palmer’s letter he said: "On the basis of the evidence I heard and on the balance of probability, Ms Fisher would have survived had the ambulance crew been able to attend within 30 minutes or indeed at any point before the fire broke out."
Across London, in Heston on July 10, two people died following a building fire and the LAS apologised for its delay in responding to the incident but said it had happened on a very busy night.
Two people died following a fire in a building in Heston on July 10
The area’s MP Seema Malhotra has written to Mr Hunt asking him to launch an inquiry into the London Ambulance Service, which according to the MP is having to make 890 job cuts between 2011 and 2016 because of a £53m budget cut.
Problems with the ambulance service were evident as early as February last year when landscape gardener Rod Reed was left waiting for an ambulance for an hour after he lacerated his hands on glass in a gardening accident.
LAS said it was unable to send an ambulance immediately because of exceptionally high demand.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here