AMBULANCE chiefs have introduced procedures for dealing with incidents and complaints that involve two different counties.

The policies were brought in following a report by the Health Service Commissioner for England of the investigation into a complaint made by a Bury woman whose husband died after an ambulance delay.

Mrs Nora Cornwell launched the complaint against both Greater Manchester Ambulance Service and Lancashire Ambulance Service in 1997 after the death of her husband Peter.

Mrs Cornwell, from Lowercroft Road, Bury, made a 999 call in December 1997.

The call was routed to the GMAS control room, although the location of the incident was within the LAS area.

GMAS transferred the call to Lancashire, who dispatched an ambulance. But because GMAS had a station closer to the incident than Lancashire, they agreed to respond and Lancashire stood down.

The GMAS ambulance eventually arrived 22 minutes after the initial call, but Mr Cornwell died in hospital later that day.

Following extensive complaints to both ambulance services who both denied responsibility, Mrs Cornwell called for an independent review of both the case and the complaints procedure. The Government Ombudsman, Shena Cuming, recommended that both ambulance services establish a working party to with a representative from each, together with the telephone company, to deal with mis-routed 999 calls.

She also suggested that the protocol on cross boundary arrangements should be revised to make sure the service receiving any mis-routed request mobilises its nearest ambulance resource before contacting the dispatch centre of the service responsible for that area.

Recommendations were made that both services should review arrangements for investigating and responding to complaints about cross boundary incidents and a working party should be set up to meet bi-monthly to discuss and monitor any issues about mis-routed 999 calls.

Upholding Mrs Cornwell's concerns that the handling of the complaint was unnecessarily delayed as a result of the dispute between the two service, Mrs Cuming said: "I am pleased to acknowledge that both accept the handling of the case was unsatisfactory and have introduces a procedure to deal with cross boundary complaints."

The Ombudsman report and recommendations were presented to the GMAS NHS Trust board yesterday as well as a new policy for dealing with complaints.

Chairman Alan Stephenson said: "It is a sad state of affairs for both GMAS and from a public point of view that the complaint got this far. This must never happen again and hopefully the new policies will make sure it doesn't."