Change language
Actions
Displays
Remove from selection
Add to selection
Abstract

Police should have arrived more quickly at the flat of a dying man, a Met Police standards officer has admitted.

Two police call handlers have been put on limited duties while the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) investigate why they did not instruct officers to attend Mark Isham’s flat in Holloway Road as a matter of urgency.

The door to his block of flats was locked and paramedics from London Ambulance Service (LAS) were waiting for the police to force entry in September last year.

By the time police and paramedics gained access Mr Isham, 38, was in cardiac arrest. LAS also carried out an investigation into their involvement.

At a hearing at St Pancras Coroner’s Court on Friday, assistant coroner Dr Richard Brittain said it was “difficult to establish” whether the delay contributed to Islington-born Mr Isham’s death.

He had made a call to the emergency services just before 7.30am after an aneurysm on his right thigh burst. He called back minutes later to tell LAS he was having trouble breathing and was “in a bad way” before collapsing while on the line.

An ambulance arrived within the eight-minute response target but paramedic Marie Saunders told the inquest it was not common practice for staff to force doors open and that they usually waited for police.

Police officers arrived at 8.50am and managed to open the door with “moderate force”, PC Andy Adams said.

The response car he was riding was in EC1 when they were told to attend Mr Isham’s flat on a 60-minute timescale – one level down from the highest priority which would mean a 15-minute attendance target.

Chief Inspector Phillip Ryan, from the Met’s professional standards and continual improvement department, said: “We feel in retrospect that with the information from London Ambulance Service the call should have been upgraded to I [the highest grading].

“There was a human error compounded by lack of control over what else was happening in the borough.”

When asked by Dr Brittain what would have happened if the police response car had been informed of the seriousness of Mr Isham’s second call, PC Adams replied: “We would have gone on an emergency response.”

Briony Sloper, deputy director of nursing and quality at LAS, who carried out an investigation into the ambulance service’s response to the incident, said LAS call handlers also failed to raise the seriousness of Mr Isham’s second call.

Ms Saunders had earlier told the inquest she would have behaved differently if she was aware Mr Isham had been heard to collapse.

“I would have tried to force entry and certainly do more than just pull and push the door,” she said.

Dr Brittain said: “The incident does raise concerns about the ability of the organisations to communicate with each other, but I am satisfied that these have been appropriately addressed so that incidents like this are less likely to happen in the future.”

Dr Brittain said Mr Isham suffered a drug-related death