THE organisation responsible for ambulances and emergency medical care in Wiltshire has admitted it has problems.

At a Great Western Ambulance NHS Trust board meeting on Tuesday directors reported that the computer system designed to co-ordinate ambulance responses was not fit for purpose.

Chief executive Tim Lynch said there had been failures in the computer system used to dispatch ambulances to emergencies, which had delayed the introduction of a new system.

He also blamed staff absence and sickness as a major contributing factor towards the trust's failure to meet Government-standard targets for dealing with serious Category A emergency calls.

Steve West, director of operations, said: "The impact of sickness has had the biggest effect on our performance, I believe."

The Great Western Ambulance Service, whose motto is 'Right Care, Right Place, Right Time' made an embarrassing mistake when dealing with Trowbridge patient Eric Tennant, who died of a heart attack on September 3.

They mistakenly sent an ambulance back to his house in Alderton Way the day after he died, upsetting his 75-year-old wife Audrey.

The Trust has apologised for the mistake that it says was probably caused by human error combined with a system failure.

It has denied that the problem was down to a wider lack of resources within the service but has conceded that morale has been affected.

Victoria Elms, head of communications, said: "What happened was not due to a lack of resources but it may have been low staff morale. This is understandable as the service is undergoing a lot of change."

The service has been failing to meet its targets this year, until last week, when it exceeded its 75 per cent aim of responding to Category A calls within eight minutes, thanks largely to staff sickness being low. The trust believes it can meet its targets in the future.

Chairman of the board Tony FitzSimons, said: "We are confident we can deliver as long as outside factors beyond our control do not adversely affect our performance."

A new computer system is being installed and extra staff, called emergency care assistants, are being brought in.