This 89-year-old woman spent 24-hours lying at the bottom of a flight of stairs. Where was the ambulance?

Shirley Harris smiling in a cafe
-Credit:Amanda Thomas


The family of an 89-year-old woman who was left in pain at the bottom of her stairs after falling have spoken out after she was forced to wait nearly 24 hours for an ambulance, despite being told she was a "priority patient". When Shirley Harris, who was suspected to have broken her hip, finally made it to hospital, she was then left waiting in a queue of ambulances before being assessed.

Mrs Harris, who is from Williamstown in the Rhondda, was left "in agony", unable to move and with very little pain relief during the ordeal which lasted over 21 hours from her initial fall. In an apology from the Welsh Ambulance Service, Executive Director of Operations Lee Brooks said that Mrs Harris' experience was a "symptom of the sustained and well-documented pressures across the entire system."

Mrs Harris called her son Peter Harris after missing the bottom step of the stairs at her home, causing her to fall backwards onto the floor in the passage. In the first of a number of calls the family made to 999 just after 10am, call handlers suspected that Mrs Harris had fractured her hip and said the wait would be around 4-8 hours.

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At 2.30pm, the family called 999 and said it would still be a 4-8 hour wait. When calling again at 6pm after there being no sign of help, call handlers reassured Mrs Harris' family that she was a priority, but the wait would still be 4-8 hours. When calling 999 and 101, the family were told to give her paracetamol to ease the pain during the wait.

Mrs Harris' niece, Amanda Thomas, who spoke to WalesOnline about the ordeal her aunt went through said the paracetamol "was obviously not helping her pain. She was in agony." Stay informed on the latest health news by signing up to our newsletter here

At 10pm, after calling 101, the family were told that Mrs Harris was a "top priority", but they could no longer provide an ETA for when the ambulance would arrive. "We were totally worried and frustrated," Amanda said.

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Due to the long wait, 101 contacted the out of hours GP so that Mrs Harris could receive stronger medication and a doctor came out to her at 3am. However, to the family's "complete dismay", the doctor could only give her co-codamol as if anything stronger was given, they would have to stay and monitor Mrs Harris until the paramedics arrived. "It didn't help at all with the pain," Amanda said.

At 7.20am, an ambulance finally arrived. Mrs Harris was given gas and air to be moved into the ambulance due to how much pain she was in. Amanda said that due to the Royal Glamorgan Hospital in Llantrisant, which is the closest hospital to Mrs Harris' home, being "choc a block", they were told she would be going to Prince Charles in Merthyr.

However, Mrs Harris' wait did not end when the ambulance arrived. When Amanda arrived at the hospital at 10.45am, she found out that her aunt hadn't been assessed and was still waiting on the back of an ambulance.

By 12pm, Mrs Harris has been assessed and it was found that she had fractured her hip and would need a partial hip replacement, which was scheduled for Thursday, January 9. However, this was then cancelled due to emergencies and rescheduled for Friday morning but again, the surgery was cancelled.

After more phone calls to the hospital, and over 73 hours since the initial fall, Mrs Harris had her surgery on Saturday, January 11. "Our whole family were on pins for four days in case anything bad happened or the pain caused further medical problems from her," Amanda said.

Shirley Harris smiling
Mrs Harris is recovering well after her surgery -Credit:Amanda Thomas

She added that the staff at Prince Charles have been "wonderful", despite being "severely understaffed", and thankfully, her aunt is continuing to recover well.

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Amanda explained that she has been left extremely frustrated by the ordeal. She said that recent governments have "grossly underfunded" health services and as a result of "inadequate pay", many healthcare staff are leaving the profession. "It's leaving our sick and elderly grossly neglected," Amanda said.

Lee Brooks, Executive Director of Operations at the Welsh Ambulance Service, said: "We sincerely apologise to Mrs Harris and her family for what would have been a painful and distressing wait for help.

“Unfortunately, the wait that Mrs Harris experienced is a symptom of the sustained and well-documented pressures across the entire system, and while we aim to respond quickly, we must prioritise our limited resources, sending them to patients requiring lifesaving intervention first.

"We are working with our NHS partners and Welsh Government to try and alleviate these pressures and are also thinking very differently about the way we deliver services in future.

“We invite Mrs Harris, or a representative, to contact us directly so that we can better understand their concerns and investigate what happened.”