'The 999 call handler didn't know where Orkney was' - retired police detective recounts the harrowing story of his wife's death
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
“Even when I think about it now, the tears come...” The emotion in Charles Hepburn’s voice is palpable as he recounts the day his wife died. At the heart of the former Detective Superintendent’s agony is the centralisation of emergency services he personally campaigned against.
When his wife Kathleen (pictured above) collapsed on a holiday in Birsay in 2017, the 999 call handler did not know where Orkney was.
Details of the incident were relayed at the leadership debate hosted by the Inverness Courier – sister paper to the Northern Times – with all three First Minister hopefuls left in no doubt about concerns over the impact of centralisation of services.
Mr Hepburn (73, pictured) told how the couple had been staying at a campsite at Birsay on Orkney when his wife kindly offered to put another woman’s clothes in the washing machine after she had finished hers.
He said: “She heard the washing machine stop and she got up and went in and that was the last I saw of her. The washing machine was placed in the women’s toilets and another woman went in there and found her.”
Kathleen, who was 65, had suffered a brain haemorrhage. When alerted, the seasoned police officer instantly dialled 999.
“I said ‘my wife has collapsed, she is not breathing, I am at the Birsay campsite on Orkney’.
“The call-handler said: ‘I have no idea where that is,’ I said: ‘Ok, it is at the end of Loch of Boardhouse, on Orkney.’ She responded: ‘Where is Orkney?’ I was starting to get angry: ‘For crying out loud, do you not know where Orkney is?’ She came back: ‘If you say that to me one more time I am going to put this phone down’.”
He in no way blames the paramedics who “tried very hard” but “as soon as I heard them say they called the doctor I knew there was no hope,” the impact of that call remains.
“I grieve for my wife everyday,” he said. “The not knowing where we were absolutely made it more traumatic, there is no question about it. It was so frustrating, I was so angry about it.
“You realise that these people don’t know where we are and I kept saying ‘I need help, I need help now’ – I have never felt so useless in all my life and given my career that was very hard, very hard.
“Even when I think about it now, the tears come. I have had PTSD through work and there is no doubt that that is what I have, it is still so raw.
“What hurts is that no matter how late I came home after work, I never ate alone, my wife was always there and that was therapeutic but when she needed help I still feel that I couldn’t get it for her.”
A spokesman for the Scottish Ambulance Service said: “Our sympathies are with Mr Hepburn and we are very sorry for his loss. However, as we said at the time, our ambulance crew took 22 minutes to arrive on scene and they absolutely did know the patient’s location.
“We received a 999 call at 4.47pm and our crew drove the 20 mile journey from Kirkwall to Birsay, arriving at 5.09pm. The crew double-checked the address of the campsite en-route to ensure there was no delay in reaching the patient; as a result there was no avoidable delay.”
Mr Hepburn said after hearing the ambulance response: “That is exactly what they told me at the time and I don’t dispute that it took the ambulance crew 20 minutes to reach us from when they got the shout.
“What I am saying is that the issue is that the call handler didn’t know where Orkney was. I am sure the crew knew where Birsay campsite was, I am sure they left when they got the shout, but my call was made a lot earlier – at around 4pm.
“Someone else could have made the call, a lot of people were trying to help but I just don’t know. I know I don’t blame the ambulance crew, I don’t even blame the call handler – it is centralisation that was the problem.”
Typically all 999 calls are answered by BT centres in Glasgow and Dundee, then transferred. Changes in 2004 meant that the Scottish Ambulance Service had three main centres so Mr Hepburn’s call should have gone to Inverness.
But high call volumes mean some are automatically routed to one of the other two control centres – in Cardonald and South Queensferry. Previously they were even more localised.
Mr Hepburn explained: “The key to this is that the call I made was not routed to a centre where staff had the appropriate geographical knowledge.
“Before centralisation, BT would have transferred you straight through to the local station or base and they would have known locations.”
The former Highland detective has never spoken about this publicly, however when he heard about our leadership debate, he took the chance to put a question to the SNP candidates about the centralisation of emergency services, fearing that “lives are in jeopardy”.
Asked if they would decentralise call handling, Humza Yousaf said: “If it takes call handlers in particular areas and we think there’ll be a better service there – we should absolutely be open to that.”
Kate Forbes explained that she has experienced frustration with centralised call handling – “I’m not the only person in this room who has phoned up about something and had to go through a lot of steps to describe precisely where something has happened, so there is a strong argument to make about ensuring that call handling is decentralised.”
Ash Regan echoed Ms Forbes’s concerns, offering “one possible solution is that local councils could vote members onto the SPA [Scottish Police Authority] for each area, which would give that local connection, if you like.”
Warnings and concerns have been expressed going as far back as November 2013 with late Liberal Democrat MP Charles Kennedy being among the first to back the idea of a Highland Blue Light Hub.
Councillor Matthew Reiss, who was a Chief Inspector and former Area Commander for Caithness, Sutherland and East Ross, said: “Mr Hepburn’s account of his wife’s death makes very uncomfortable reading.
“I am certain, beyond certain, that had that emergency call been answered locally the confusion would not have arisen.
“The local emergency control rooms worked, and worked well.
“I spent nearly a year in an office next to the Inverness Northern Constabulary control room. The staff were committed and, crucially, knew their patch.”
The year Mr Hepburn’s wife died, the Conservatives revealed that 202 mistakes were made during 999 calls, however then Assistant Chief Constable Nelson Telfer insisted that was not down to the closure of local call centres but “human error”.
Mr Hepburn will forever be left with questions but he is keen to share his experience in the hope other lives can be saved.
