AMBULANCE chiefs have admitted that at least one man died because there was no proper back-up system for their new communications network.

The admission came as local MPs David Chaytor and Ivan Lewis quizzed bosses over the tragedy.

Service chairman Alan Stephenson and chief executive Adrian Lucas said there were no contingency plans for a failure of the new Terrafix system when a Wigan man died after an ambulance took 24 minutes to turn up.

But they did not admit responsibility for a second death of a 48-year-old Bolton father-of-three six days later.

Mr Lewis, who represents Bury South, chaired the private meeting which was held at the House of Commons and attended by some of the region's MPs.

"They held their hands up and said there had been mistakes and they had moved to put them right," said Mr Lewis, who described the meeting as "full and frank".

"They assured us that contingency plans had been sorted out and that this would not happen again." His Bury North counterpart, David Chaytor, said that the two men claimed there were no problems with the system itself and that the difficulties had been caused by the failure of British Telecom landlines.

He said: "They also admitted that they did not have contingency plans for such a failure at first. They admitted that this had been the case when the Wigan man died.

"They do now have a back-up system and all ambulance drivers carry pagers to make sure there is no repeat."

The MPs now plan to hold a second meeting with Mr Stephenson and the replacement for Mr Lucas, who is moving to a new job, in late spring or early summer.

Mr Chaytor said: "This was a constructive meeting but we were very concerned. There were serious matters to be dealt with, including the death of a patient.

"There are further matters which need to be discussed, including management systems and the question of low morale in the service.Those are the first things we will pick up when we meet the new man."

A statement from GMAS simply confirmed that a private meeting with North West MPs had taken place in the Commons and was called at the service's request.

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