South Western Ambulance Service will accept grid references. Photo: Graham Richardson CC BY 2.0

Britain’s biggest walkers’ campaign group has had its first success in persuading ambulance controllers to accept locations based on a grid reference.

Ramblers’ members had reported 999 staff could not accept a location based on grid reference when sending ambulances to emergencies, but insisted on a postcode.

Group leaders reported this had caused delays in getting the ambulances to casualty sites and the Ramblers appealed for instances where this had happened as it mounted a campaign to get the country’s ambulance controllers to accept a grid reference, which is most likely to be used by walkers and outdoor enthusiasts.

Now, one ambulance organisation has agreed to incorporate grid references into its software, as well as satellite navigation and GPS location data.

Ramblers chief executive Tom Franklin said on his blog that South Western Ambulance Service Trust will update its system to allow walkers to give grid references when requesting ambulances.

He said: “The Ramblers are campaigning to persuade all ambulance trusts to ensure they can take grid reference locations, after learning of cases where search and rescue teams were hampered by a lack of understanding of grid references by ambulance control teams.

“This is an important milestone in this campaign, but we’ve got much further to go. Each ambulance trust works independently, so we need to persuade them all.”

Britain’s Ordnance Survey national grid allows a location to an accuracy of a 100m square by quoting index letters and a six-figure reference.