‘No patient should have to wait that long for care,’ the ambulance service said in an apology
A 90-year-old woman waited more than 32 hours for an ambulance after breaking her hip in a fall. During that period Iris Morgan developed an infection that could have killed her, hospital medics later told her appalled family.
The pensioner became increasingly delirious as she waited at her home in Wyesham, Monmouthshire, with family members who made repeated calls to the ambulance service, only to be given expected times of arrival that did not materialise.
Mrs Morgan’s relatives could not drive her to hospital themselves as the medical advice was to avoid moving her. For the biggest stories in Wales first, sign up to our daily newsletter.
After paramedics finally arrived and took her to Cwmbran’s Grange hospital, she needed a blood transfusion because of the infection. A consultant told the family it could have been “a terminal event”.
The Welsh Ambulance Service apologised and said it was investigating the delays, which it put down to handover delays at the Grange.
Mrs Morgan seemed to be “in shock” by the time she finally got help, said her daughter Alison, who added: “I posted on Facebook about what happened and there were so many messages from people saying their own elderly parents had been in similar situations. Something needs to be done.”
After the fall at around 3.35pm on Sunday, December 7, family members called 999 and were told to expect a wait of four to six hours for an ambulance, “but probably on the shorter side of that”.
Alison said: “We managed to lift her from the floor to the sofa, and she was able to sit up slightly but she couldn’t get up or walk around.”
Shortly after midnight Alison called 999 again and was given an estimate of two hours. By 7am, with her mum not only in pain but becoming confused, she made another call and was told the wait would be six to eight hours as the service was very busy.
Overnight she had in desperation emailed the office of Monmouthshire MP Catherine Fookes. That morning she received a call from one of the MP’s staff, who said they had been trying to get hold of the ambulance service’s chief executive to raise the matter. The staff member was “lovely” and “kept in touch throughout the day to see how things were”, said Alison.
In the afternoon Alison had a video call with someone she believes to have been an employee of the ambulance service, so they could see her mum’s leg. “They diagnosed a dislocated knee as her leg was at a funny angle, but this later turned out to be wrong,” said Alison.
At 3.21pm the family called 999 again and heard a new wait time of four to six hours. “By this time mum was getting increasingly delirious,” said Alison. “She could only move slightly, not walk, not go to the toilet, so was getting more and more distressed for obvious reasons.
“The ambulance service eventually arrived a little after midnight. I have to say how wonderful they were, and they could not believe how long we had been waiting – 32 and a half hours in all. One of them told me he had spent all his shift on the Sunday night waiting outside the Grange with a patient in the ambulance.”
Mrs Morgan was admitted to the Grange after a 20-minute wait in the ambulance outside. She had a pin inserted in her fractured hip and needed a blood transfusion as her infection had caused her haemoglobin levels to drop.
After a consultant informed the family that Mrs Morgan could have died, Alison wondered if the delay might have been even longer – and potentially fatal – if not for the intervention from the MP’s office.
“It felt like there was a lack of communication between different services,” said Alison, who during the wait period had made unsuccessful attempts at getting help through the local GP surgery and St John Ambulance.
The Welsh Ambulance Service has told the family its ‘putting things right’ team will investigate the matter and aim to provide a response within 30 working days.
‘Loss of capacity’
Lee Brooks, executive director of operations at the ambulance service, said: “No patient should have to wait that long for care, and we are very sorry for the extended delays experienced by Mrs Morgan following her fall.
“Despite improvements seen during the summer months at the Grange University Hospital, winter pressures across the health system meant that hospital handover delays deteriorated. This loss of capacity outside hospitals had a direct impact on our ability to respond promptly to 999 calls.
“We are working closely with health boards to build on the progress made before Christmas to collectively improve patient flow, handover performance and the experience of patients and staff alike. We also launched a dedicated ‘falls desk’ in November, which is already helping patients receive remote assessments and, in some cases, assistance from the ground sooner than before.”
The service says the ambulance handover time at the Grange increased from one hour in October to two and a half hours as of December 14.
A spokesman for Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, which runs the hospital, said: “We have seen improvements in the last few months as we worked hard to reduce ambulance handover times to 45 minutes or less, but in recent weeks handover times have increased due to our services coming under extreme pressures caused by flu and other winter viruses, as in other areas of Wales and the UK.
“Improving patient flow and reducing delays are urgent priorities for the health board and we are taking extra steps to support patient discharges from our hospitals by working collaboratively with local authority partners to free up beds for the patients who need them most.
“We would like to thank our staff for their hard work in such challenging circumstances and to our patients for their understanding at this time.”
