Mum with serious head injury waits over five hours for an ambulance

A mum who suffered a serious head injury at work was left lying on the floor waiting for an ambulance for several hours. Sue Wood, 58, waited nearly five-and-a-half hours for an ambulance last week while slipping in and out of consciousness.

The care worker said she was left fearing the worst as she thought she might have a bleed on the brain. She described the ordeal as "the scariest" saying paramedics and the NHS are not getting the support they need.

"I was unconscious for two to three minutes and the ambulance control said they would be with us as soon as possible," she said. "Several calls were made throughout the time I was on the floor asking 'how long are you going to be?'"

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The injury occurred at around 11pm on Monday, June 24, but an ambulance did not reach the location in Liskeard for five hours and six minutes. Her colleagues even called her daughter to come be by her side.

Ms Wood believed she would be considered a Category 1 patient. The national standard for response times states that all ambulance trusts must respond to Category 1 calls in seven minutes on average.

South Western Ambulance Service Foundation Trust (SWASFT) however does not tell patients what response category they are in or how long it will take to arrive. Ambulances are instead sent to patients with the most life-threatening conditions first, such as cardiac arrest.

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When Ms Wood, who was in and out of consciousness, finally arrived at Derriford Hospital several hours after the injury, she said around 30 ambulances, if not more, were waiting with other patients also needing to be offloaded.

"I had a hematoma on my head, I was in so much pain, feeling sick and at one point they thought I was having seizures but it wasn't luckily. It was just shock.

"But my fear is that lying there for nearly five and a half hours is just not right. The care I received once the staff got there was second to none but my concern is, I'm here to tell the tale, but how many times is this going to keep happening?"

She said the outcome could have been different and she might not have been here to tell this story. "I think people that have experienced this need to get out there and speak up," she added, saying you don't know how dire the situation is until you need emergency care.

A spokesperson for SWASFT, said: “We are sorry that we were unable to provide a timely response to this patient. Any occasion where the care we provide falls below the high standards our patients deserve and rightly expect is unacceptable.

“Handover delays at emergency departments remain one of our biggest challenges. To ensure our ambulances are available to attend the next emergency call within the community, we need to be able to hand patients over within the 15-minute national target.

“We continue to work hard with our partners in the NHS and social care, to do all we can to improve the service that patients receive.”

Since 2020 the Trust has increased the number of hours its ambulances are on the road every week from 37,000 to over 50,000 hours. One of the big factors linking to ambulance delays is hospital handover delays, which are linked to the entire health and social care system, run by local authorities.

Essentially beds need to be available in order for new patients to be admitted to hospitals. These ambulances are then freed up to attend the next callout and so on.

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