Health bosses have launched an investigation into the death of a person waiting for an ambulance.

Ambulance staff have told the Gazette that there was a delay in sending an ambulance to the person in Amesbury due to problems with a newly-introduced computer system at ambulance control in Devizes.

Staff said there was an ambulance crew available at Amesbury but the control room operatorsdid not know that as their computer system showed the crew was with another patient.

The Gazette understands the Amesbury crew had contacted the Devizes control room via their onboard computer system to tell them they had completed a job and were available but the message did not get to the control room.

The new system was introduced on October 16 by bosses at the Great Western Ambulance Service at the same time as they switched the answering of 999 calls from Devizes to ambulance control in Bristol.

The Gazette has been contacted by angry paramedics and a control room operator about the change.

They said the information coming to ambulance controllers in Devizes from Bristol is not detailed enough, leading to delays in dispatching ambulances.

An ambulance controller who works at Wiltshire's control centre said: "The majority of the addresses that we get from the Avon control centre are wrong.

"We had a call to Queen's Drive in Swindon which is one of the longest roads in Swindon and the control at Avon said they didn't have a Queens Drive in Swindon on their system, yet there is an ambulance station in Queens Drive.

"We are having to phone callers back a few times a day to check addresses before we can send an ambulance.

"The previous computer system we had, called Storm, was the most up to date system in the country. Every address was entered on to the database and all the data was supposed to go on to Avon's system but it has not."

Union representatives are meeting management tomorrow to discuss concerns.A spokesman for the Great Western Ambulance Service said an investigation into an incident in Amesbury has begun.

This week an ambulance worker wrote to the Gazette detailing their frustrations. Read their letter below