WE now live in a world ruled and run by computer-fuelled bureaucracies, our lives at the mercy of the wrong keystroke. Examples of mistakes - and the resulting toll in human misery - are never far away from our newspapers and television screens.

The latest incident concerns a blunder by Worcestershire Royal Hospital and the anguish it has caused a mother who was invited for a scan on her baby's progress - just weeks after he had died following a premature birth.

We may never fully get to the bottom of what caused this appalling error. It could be that those affected will have to be content with the usual grovelling apology from the hospital authorities. And that will be it - until the next time.

However, this newspaper demands that a thorough investigation is undertaken and steps taken to ensure that mistakes of this severity never happen again.

All office workers know that cross-checking details is part of everyday routine. While the precise methods of daily practice will be known only to themselves, there can be little doubt that the Royal's computer operatives have not performed this task to the standards that the public expects.

This newspaper accepts that all enterprises are vulnerable to human error. The person who hasn't erred has not yet been born.

However, the suffering caused to Tracey Hooper just weeks after she had buried her son does not fall into any category of acceptability. Saying sorry is simply not enough.