AMBULANCE staff did not follow the correct procedures in the case of a Faifley man who died nearly nine hours after he first sought medical help, an inquiry has concluded.

The findings of a Fatal Accident Inquiry into the death of Andrew Logan determined that call taker supervisor James Cree did not attempt to contact Mr Logan’s GP to tell him the ambulance would be late.

Mr Cree did not check whether there had been a clear change in Mr Logan’s condition during a telephone conversation with his wife later in the evening.

The findings were made after an inquiry which took place in Dumbarton between January and June this year. It came after the death of Mr Logan from a ruptured aneurysm in the early hours of the morning on September 18, 2011.

The 58-year-old had called NHS 24 at around 4.50pm on September 17 complaining of a sharp pain in the area from his stomach to his groin. A second call was made before a GP visited Mr Logan, calling for an ambulance at 6.39pm. The GP requested an ambulance with a four-hour response time but it did not arrive until shortly after 2am — by which time Mr Logan was unconscious and unresponsive. He was pronounced dead at 2.56am.

In his findings, Sheriff Pender ruled that even if Mr Logan had arrived at the Western Infirmary earlier in the evening, he would not have been offered emergency surgery because of his various other health problems, “and the certain outcome would have been his death”.

The sheriff cited the evidence of Paul Rogers, a general surgeon specialising in vascular surgery at the Western and Gartnavel, who felt the proper course of action “would have been to offer palliative care only, with a view to ensuring that Mr Logan’s death was as dignified and comfortable as it could be, and that there would be as little possible distress to his relatives.” Sheriff Pender also called for all Scottish Ambulance Service staff to be familiar with procedures when it becomes apparent urgent calls will not be dealt with in the required time scale, adding that there was a lack of clarity on the issue with existing staff.

He said that measures should be in place “to ensure that staff are fully aware that, irrespective of the time which has passed since the call was initiated, and irrespective of shift patterns of out of hours GPs, if an urgent call is not going to be attended within the stipulated timescale, the procedure set out in any protocol in force at the time must be followed, and in particular the GP or ordering authority must be contacted.” A Scottish Ambulance Service spokesman said: “Since the time of this incident we have made significant enhancements to procedures and processes in Ambulance Control and all relevant staff have received additional training and reinforcement of protocols to ensure that they are robust.”