Heather Louise Parkhill, 39, died at her home in Garden City, Deeside, after waiting 14 hours for an ambulance – with a coroner ruling earlier help would probably have saved her
A woman tragically passed away at her residence after enduring a 14 hour wait for emergency medical assistance.
Heather Louise Parkhill, 39, became unwell at her Garden City property on Deeside due to a medical issue linked to chronic heavy drinking. An emergency call was placed at 8.41pm on April 7 2025. A subsequent call resulted in the “erroneous downgrading” of the priority classification.
Multiple additional calls requesting assistance were made during the morning of April 8, but no ambulances were available Only following a final emergency call at 10.41am was the case elevated to the most urgent category, with a first responder arriving at the scene seven minutes afterwards.
By this time, Ms Parkhill was in an extremely critical state, and revival attempts began and continued for approximately one hour.. These efforts proved futile and she was declared deceased at the property.
Coroner John Gittens launched an inquiry into her death on April 9, which reached its conclusion at the inquest’s end on January 29 this year ,reports North Wales Live
The cause of death was determined as Fatty Liver Disease, with neglect contributing due to the failure to provide prompt medical intervention. His narrative verdict concluded: “Her death was the result of a terminal event arising from a condition associated with the chronic excessive consumption of alcohol, but it is probable that the death would have been prevented by earlier medical intervention, although none was available. The deceased’s death was ultimately alcohol related but contributed to by neglect.”
He issued a Prevention of Future Deaths report to the Welsh Ambulance Services University NHS Trust. These reports are issued when a coroner believes action must be taken to prevent similar deaths occurring in future.
The coroner stated: “Evidence was given to the inquest indicating that an earlier response (even 20-30 minutes earlier) would probably have prevented this death.”
His report to the ambulance trust warned: “For many years, myself and other coroners have raised concerns regarding so called “ambulance delays” and I recognise that the challenges faced by WAST around the availability of resources are the result of multifactorial issues, however problems regarding the unavailability of resources persist. I have a mandatory statutory responsibility to raise concerns where they exist and it is clear that lives continue to be lost as a result of this problem.
“Despite all of the multi-agency efforts to improve the availability of resources and hence response times, nothing appears to change. I therefore remain concerned that lives continue to be at risk.”
In response, Liam Williams, Executive Director of Quality and Nursing at the Welsh Ambulance Service, said: “On behalf of everyone at the Welsh Ambulance Service, I want to express my sincere condolences to Mrs Parkhill’s family.
“While we cannot change the outcome, we are an organisation committed to learning and are grateful to the coroner for his examination of this case and accept his findings and the Prevention of Future Deaths report, which we take very seriously and will respond to in due course.
“Since Mrs Parkhill’s death, we have been working with Welsh Government to change the way 999 calls are categorised so that more people get life-saving help when they need it, however, it is critical that our crews are available to respond when they are needed.
“Improvement relies on a whole system collaboration, which is why we continue to work with health boards, including Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board, to reduce hospital handover delays.
“Together, these improvements will free up additional ambulance capacity so we can respond more quickly to those who need us most. We are in direct contact with Mrs Parkhill’s family to listen to their concerns and answer their questions.”
