STROKE patients in Hampshire could be misdiagnosed after a report by the county’s ambulance service showed failings in a computer system.

According to the study by South Central Ambulance Service some patients who had suffered a stroke faced unnecessary delays after the software failed to classify their case as urgent.

The trust is one of a number around the country that uses advanced medical priority dispatch software (AMPDS) to help telephone operators assess what sort of response is required from information given.

From that information the call is then put into a category, some patients were put into a category A which meant they had an ambulance with them within eight minutes while others were put in category B, which has a 19 minute response time.

Once patients had arrived at hospital and had been subsequently diagnosed as having a stroke, it was found only 60 per cent had been correctly diagnosed by the computer system.

Fewer than one in four were categorised as the life-threatening emergency it should have been. The ambulance service is now calling for a review by the Department of Health to ensure all stroke victims are correctly categorised as a life-threatening emergency.

A spokesman for the company which produces the AMPDS software said the data used was out of date as the system had subsequently been updated twice.