EXCLUSIVE by SUZANNE ELSWORTH

THE FAMILY of a young mum who died following a three hour wrangle over air ambulances has branded the events a 'shambles.

And they have welcomed a damning report, released last Thursday, which condemns the actions of ambulance chief David Todhunter who lives in Ashbury Drive, Appleton Thorn.

Julie Donaldson, a 34-year-old mother of three from Whittle Hall, who died in May 1999, desperately needed a liver transplant but her treatment was put on hold due to a delay in arranging air transport to take her from Warrington to Leeds. The report condemns the lack of protocols in place to govern the use of air ambulances, and slams the actions of Mersey Regional Ambulance Service's chief executive Mr Todhunter who rejected a waiting North West Aero Medical Services air ambulance because of what appeared to be a 'deep antipathy' between him and a key member of staff at the company.

Mr Todhunter went on sick leave three days before the report was made public and as the Guardian went to press Mersey Regional Ambulance Service's board was meeting to discuss the way forward.

Julie's brother-in-law Stuart said: "We are really pleased with the report.

"We couldn't have asked for anything so in depth and so critical. The tone is that the events were a total shambles and we appreciate that the report has seen through a lot of the confusion we have found over the past 18 months."

Dr Bill Kirkup, NHS Executive regional director, conducted the independent review. He concluded that Julie's eventual death could not have been prevented, but states that it is impossible to say whether the delay in transfer had a bearing on the outcome of treatment and criticises Mersey Regional Ambulance for stating it could not have done so.

But Stuart says the family will continue their battle for the truth.

"We will continue to investigate," he said.

"The family needs to have more substantial evidence. Unless we ask questions we will never know. I want to make sure that in 20 years' time if the children ask why did she die, we can say we did all we could."

The report says there were no supportable reasons for Mr Todhunter's actions in blocking the transfer. It adds: "Concerns about NWAMS should have been tested in the cold light of day, not whilst a critically ill patient remained in need of moving to a specialist centre."

Reference was also made to the lack of information given to the family. The first they knew of the problems was when an RAF report was leaked, and by piecing together media reports they realised that it referred to Julie.

Julie's husband Robert, their three sons, John, aged 14, Jordan, aged six, and three-year-old Alex, and the rest of the family are trying to put their lives back together.

And the family is laying the blame at the door of Mr Todhunter. They have been invited to meet with him and the chairman of Mersey Regional Ambulance Service next week and say that unless action is taken, any apology they are given will be meaningless.

"It's quite clear from the report that he should not have been making decisions against the clinician's advice," said Stuart. "It wasn't his place.

"But the ambulance service needs to learn from this. In their statement after the report came out they say they are aware of the distress that 'may have' been caused to the family. Distress was caused. This statement shows that they are not learning, even now."

In a statement, the ambulance service's board said it was confident that systems were in place to ensure that such an event could not happen again. It said it will adopt the report's recommendations and put in place an action plan, particularly with regard to handling complaints.