Allan Davies, who had a history of illicit drug misuse, telephoned 999 after unintentionally taking heroin, crack cocaine and mamba. Although he initially reported breathlessness, the ambulance response was delayed as dispatched ambulances were transferred to higher-category patients; he was later found in cardiac arrest and died, with the medical cause of death recorded as heroin overdose. The substantive concerns were that NHS Pathways triage treated overdose cases too generically, without regard to the drug taken and risk of sudden collapse, and that not all NHS trusts and ambulance services were aware of this deficiency.
NHS England