Elderly Warwick woman, 90, had to wait more than ten hours for ambulance after breaking her hip in fall

An elderly Warwick woman had to wait for more than ten hours for an ambulance to arrive after she had broken her hip in a fall at her home.

Lilian Delday, 90, suffered the fall in her kitchen last Wednesday (October 5) at 4.40pm and an ambulance was called very soon after.

Her husband Robin, also 90, and son Garry came to her aid and tried to make her as comfortable as possible while they waited.

After more than ten hours and several more calls for assistance a crew finally arrived at around 3.20am on Thursday October 6.

Gary has since contacted The Courier and Weekly News and Warwickshire World to raise concerns about “the sorry state of the ambulance service”.

He said: “I am in no way complaining about the ambulance staff, the call centre staff or anyone else involved in the running of the service, this is directed solely at the people responsible for the funding of the NHS, ie the Government.

“If such people think it is acceptable for a 90-year-old-lady to spend ten-and-a-half hours lying on a cold kitchen floor with a broken hip and in so much pain that she couldn’t move or be moved, then I am lost for words.

"To watch your elderly mother in such a situation and your father thinking that the emergency services were not going to attend was heartbreaking.”

"This is supposed to be the 21st century, in a country that is far from ‘Third World’.

"I am incredibly incensed that such a situation has to be endured in this day and age.

“I have nothing but praise for the emergency services and it must be soul destroying for them to be in this predicament.

“The Government needs to get its act together and sort this out.”

West Midlands Ambulance Service has said the incident had been categorised as C3 – the third highest priority.

A spokeswoman for the service said: “We would like to apologise to the patient and her family for the delayed response.

“The ambulance service relies on each part of the health and social care system working together so that our ambulances can get to patients in the community quickly.

"Sadly, the pressures we are seeing in health and social care lead to long hospital handover delays with our crews left caring for patients that need admitting to hospital rather than responding to the next call.

"The result is that our crews are delayed reaching patients.

“We are working incredibly hard with all of our NHS and social care partners to prevent these delays, looking at new ways to safely hand over patients quickly so that our crews can respond more rapidly and save more lives.”

Garry contacted Warwick and Leamington MP Matt Western to raise concerns about the incident.

In his reply, Mr Western said: “These kinds of wait are all too common at present.

"They result from chronic underfunding of the NHS and also from the Government’s failure to resolve the social care crisis.

" As you may be aware, in July I raised the case of another constituent whose mother experienced an equally long and traumatic wait, in Parliament.

" As Parliament returns this week, I will look for an opportunity to highlight the issue once again in the hope that mine and other’s voices effect a change in direction on NHS funding.”