Apology after son travels 200 miles to reach injured mother - and still arrives before ambulance

A man who had to travel 200 miles to reach his injured elderly mother in Devon still managed to get there before an ambulance turned up.

Mark Clements hopped on a bus from Brixton before taking a tube and two trains to reach his 77-year-old mother’s home in Exmouth after she broke her hip.

Travelling for nearly four hours, Mr Clements arrived at his mothers home at 3:10pm – 50 minutes before an ambulance and seven hours after it a 999 call was made at 9am.

Mr Clements said it was ‘heartbreaking’ for his mother Margaret to have to endure such a lengthy wait at her home on Saturday.

The South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SWASFT) has now apologised for the wait, saying there was a high demand at the time due to bad weather and added that there was considered to be no immediate threat to life when the call was first assessed.

It was later upgraded when increased pain was reported and ‘the next available resource was sent to treat her and take her to hospital for further treatment’, a spokeswoman added.

Mr Clements said when he reached his mother, who was lying on a cold conservatory floor, she was distressed.

He told ITV: ‘By this point, despite our attempts to keep her warm, my mother was extremely cold, distressed and in so much pain that she said she just wanted to die.

‘My mother is a very strong woman and it was heartbreaking to see her go through this experience.’

He said she had a hip operation on Sunday but remained weak, adding that he believed that was as a result of ‘the traumatic experience that she so unnecessarily went through’.

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The SWASFT spokeswoman said: ‘We are sorry that we were not able reach this patient sooner.

‘Like all ambulance services across the country, we continue to see an unprecedented rise in demand for our services. As such, we must prioritise our response for those most critically ill patients.

‘Unfortunately it can be very hard to manage the demand with finite resources, and occasionally those patients assessed as being less urgent do experience delays.

‘We would not wish for any patient to experience a long wait, and we continue to work exceptionally hard to deliver the highest quality response for patients.’