Patient died after eight-hour ambulance wait

A 102-year-old man died because of lengthy ambulance delays, an inquest into his death has heard. As reported by BBC Cornwall Gordon Wedgwood, who had dementia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), cancer and was almost blind, fell at 11.30pm on February 20 last year.

A 999 call was made for an ambulance which was followed by another at about 2am the next morning but Mr Wedgwood's family was then told by the call handler that it was "a busy night" and ambulance might take some time to get to him.

An ambulance eventually reached Mr Wedgwood at 7.30am, some eight hours after the original 999 call was made. Mr Wedgwood had surgery in hospital on his fractured femur three days later, but he soon declined and died on February 26 last year.

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An inquest held in Truro on Tuesday (January 21), heard that Mr Wedgwood's family didn't blame the ambulance service for the delay but said that a lack of social care packages meant ambulances were left sitting outside A&E departments for "hours on end".

Andrew Cox, senior coroner for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly said he had written several prevention of future deaths reports to the secretary of state for health and social care about the issue.

Concluding an accidental death he said that without the ambulance delay, Mr Wedgwood's fractured femur could have been treated sooner, but it was the fall which ultimately caused Mr Wedgwood's death.

Following the hearing, NHS services and the South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust issued an apology to Mr Wedgwood's family adding that it was "sorry for the unacceptable delay in the care that Mr Wedgwood received".

In its statement it said delays in emergency care are not something it wants any of its patients to experience and its teams are "working incredibly hard to make improvements so that everyone can access the right care when they need it".

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