27/06/2017 London News

Wel head come to BBC London News. regulations.

An investigation into a computer failure in the London Ambulance

Service control room on New Year's Eve has blamed it

On the busiest night of the year calls took up to 25 minutes to be

Calls had to be recorded by pen and paper for nearly five hours.

One person died after waiting 48 minutes for an ambulance.

Here's our Political Correspondent Karl Mercer.

Thousands on the streets and the ambulance service preparing

But half an hour after this, its computer system crashed,

leaving staff to resort to pen and paper to despatch ambulances.

A whistleblower told BBC London in February what the problems meant.

the people of London were failed on New Year's Eve.

They were watching their loved ones and their friends

Not knowing if or when help would arrive.

Do think there was a chance people might have died as a result of this

computer failure? Without a doubt. Today's report confirms one person

did die after waiting 48 minutes for an ambulance

despite being conscious and breathing when the ambulance

was first called. Undoubtedly patients would have

waited longer for an ambulance on New Year's Eve than the otherwise

would have because the systems are naturally slower manually. For that,

we do apologise. Between 3 and 4 in the morning

it was taking 25 minutes Some less serious cases had to wait

seven hours for an ambulance. And nearly 500 calls were dealt

with by other services. Today's report blames management

and technology failings. Essentially the problem

was that the computer's had clogged with information that should

have been deleted. There were seven cases with

technical systems and problems were raised before the incident, why on

earth were not dealt with? As I've said previously, we accept the

findings of the report that there were failings in terms of our

governance and our process management. We have put in place

measures to fix that, to improve that. You are confident it won't

happen again? I'm very confident this particular failure won't happen

again because we found a fault and we have eliminated the ability for

it to happen again. Despite the problems frontline staff

were praised for their efforts The Mayor of London has announced

new plans which he says will reduce He's putting an extra half a million

pounds into projects which deal with gangs,

increasing checks for weapons in schools and backing

the Met Police to use more stop On Monday, three men were stabbed

to death in separate The Mayor's been talking to our Home

Affairs Correspondent Nick Beake We have published today

a comprehensive plan, to coin a phrase, a plan

that is tough on knife crime, That means we're going to get rid

of dangerous people and dangerous We've got now, a specialist

team of 18 officers, who will target areas of high knife

crime, who are going to take action against those selling illegal knives

or those who are selling to underage We're also going to make sure

if a school wants a metal detector for a school,

they can have one. We are going to make sure that

young people know, look, if you carry a knife,

you're more likely to be a victim We are going to support young

people across London. All of us, not just the police,

all of us working together to stop young people been the victims

of knife crime. He's held the world record

for travelling to all Underground stations

in the fastest time possible. Now Londoner Geoff Marshall along

with his partner Vicki Pipe They're spending their summer

visiting every single It will take them 14 weeks to travel

to all 2,563 of them. And it's the perfect combination

of railways and romance, as David Sillito has

been finding out. We are travelling to all 2,563

railway stations in Great Britain. It's the cutest train

I've ever seen. Geoff and Vicki in Stourbridge

on a class 139 Parry people mover. So we both have an interest

in railways, coming from very How are you enjoying Skegness

and the weather so far? I can't really blame

Skegness for the weather. Shippey Hill is Britain's

least used station. 12 people used Shippey

request stop last year. Geoff and Vicki managed

to gather 19 for their visit. We've got Victoria sponge cake,

which is amazing and some tea. And, as you can see, they've already

required acquired some fans. Should be talk about

the Peterborough incident? We can talk about the

Peterborough incident. I lost track of time

inside the cathedral. Every day I edge towards

that line of doubt. As Ernest Hemingway once famously

said, "Do not travel A mother has given her baby the name

Bobby after he was born outside Rebecca Fox was on her way home

from hospital last Thursday She pulled up at the police station

and called for help. PC Holly Foran was on hand to help

deliver the newborn. We've enjoyed some very warm

sunny weather recently. We have seen a lot more cloud around

as you can see here. We've barely seen any brightness

this morning and we have seen some rain as well and that rain

is going to continue to arrive as we head

through the afternoon in the form These showers becoming more

prolonged so turning very wet. Lots of rain arriving

through the course of the afternoon and into the evening

so it is going to It could cause some surface spray

on larger roads and a standing water And maximum temperatures,

18-20, maybe a bit higher. The Met Office has issued a yellow

weather warning for heavy rain. The latter stages of the afternoon

into the rush-hour and overnight, We could hear a rumble or two

of thunder, a flash or two A damp start first thing tomorrow

morning but gradually that rain will start to break up and start

to move away so we will get some drier spells through the course

of the day and the maximum It is going to stay fairly unsettled

through much of this week. Heavy showers expected

through Thursday. We could get a rumble

of thunder mixed in there Temperatures stay quite

humid though as we head Katharine Carpenter will be here

with our 6.30 evening programme. But for now, from us all,

a very good afternoon. MUSIC: Fight For Your Right

by Beastie Boys I want to, like, hang out with

you guys. You put on a show. MUSIC: Let's Get This Party Started

by Pink Across the country,

11 million people