Elderly woman who collapsed in Rugby town centre is left for four hours waiting for an ambulance

The ambulance service has apologised after it emerged that an elderly woman who collapsed in Rugby town centre was left on the found for more than four hours.

Yesterday, October 14, a resident contacted the Advertiser to express their concern, having just attempted to intervene.

The resident said: "I walked past her a few times and I could see that she was being helped by two Rugby rangers and some members of the public - and they had stacked coats on top of her to try to keep her warm.

"But hours passed, and I saw that she was still lying there, waiting for an ambulance."

The resident then directly intervened, calling multiple NHS numbers and speaking with various members of staff.

He said: "At one point, I was told, 'sorry, there just aren't any ambulances in the town to respond.'"

The resident added that an ambulance did respond just over four hours after the woman first collapsed.

He said: "It's frightening. Something has gone very wrong here and it looks like the system is broken.

"I've been hearing of more incidents like this in the town centre very recently - people collapsing and being left on the floor for hours and hours until an ambulance arrives."

The Advertiser approached West Midlands Ambulance Service (WMAS) for comment and a spokesperson said they apologised for the delay, stating that the service is under severe pressure.

They said: “The Trust would like to apologise for taking just over four hours to respond to an elderly patient who had reportedly collapsed in Rugby town centre.

"We received a call at 11:46am on Thursday in the Market Place and an ambulance was arranged.

"On several occasions, staff in our control room spoke with the caller to reassess the patient’s condition and provide any clinical advice.

"An ambulance crew arrived at 3:57pm, assessed the woman who was found to have no injuries and she was discharged on scene.

“The whole of the NHS remains under severe pressure; hospital handover delays unfortunately mean patients waiting longer for an ambulance response, for which we are very sorry.

"We are working with all local NHS partners to reduce delays so crews can respond to the next incident as quickly as possible.

“Our staff and volunteers are working tirelessly to reach patients as quickly as possible, but we accept that on too many occasions, this is not as quickly as we would want and certainly not as quickly as patients and their loved ones would want.”