Apology after shocking report outlines traumatic 999 experiences of Shropshire patients

Healthwatch Shropshire carried out the investigation into people’s experiences of calling 999 after concerns about the impact of pressures on the health service.

A report into its findings will be discussed by councillors later this week.

The ambulance service has been facing extreme difficulties since 2021 – with declining response times driven by a range of difficulties across the NHS.

The report from Healthwatch features the experiences of 168 people – ranging from time waiting for an ambulance, the categorisation of their call, people who made their own way to hospital, their experience at A&E and being discharged from hospital.

Included in the responses are shocking stories where people have died or sustained serious injuries due to delays.

Of the people responding, 91 of them - or 56 per cent - detailed a negative experience with the ambulance service, and 23 - or 14 per cent - describing a mixed experience.

Of the 114 who described a negative experience, 107 – 94 per cent – said that the time it took for an ambulance to arrive was a concern.

Man died after being asked if he could make his own way to hospital

One of the anonymised responses details how a man died while waiting for help – after being asked if he could get himself to hospital after twice being told ambulances were unavailable.

It states: “He was unable to do this and went to bed for an early night. At 1am he shouted out alerting my mum who again rang for an ambulance who again told her they had no ambulances to send out and that he had to make his own way.

“Myself and my partner headed to my parents to help my dad get down the stairs so we could take him to hospital. He collapsed at the bottom of the stairs and stopped breathing. At this point we called 999 again and they finally prioritised his call.

“He was pronounced dead by ambulance staff at 4.30am.”

Responding to the findings, Mark Docherty, West Midlands Ambulance Service's executive director of nursing and clinical commissioning, said: "Reading this type of report generates mixed emotions; clearly there is a theme of people being treated well by our ambulance service, but also concerns of unacceptable delays waiting for an ambulance to arrive.

"For those people who have waited too long for an ambulance to respond, I am really very sorry, and we will do everything we can to improve this situation."

The report includes a series of anonymised personal experiences of calling 999 with some describing the indignity suffered by elderly people left to wait for hours after falling.

'Indignity and discomfort'

One states: "In short, during those 16 hours waiting for the West Midlands ambulance service to respond two grade two pressure sores developed where mum was lying in her own urine / faeces. The indignity and discomfort would have been extreme for her."

Another said: "Whilst my wife was never at risk of dying, spending 14 1/2 hours on the floor is not a pleasant experience, being unable to move, to go to the loo or get remotely comfortable... there really should be a more responsive system to cope with falls such as these."

One respondent said their own experiences of the delays faced while their daughter suffered a broken leg, had led them to question whether they should move to a different area.

They explained that they had been told it would be at least four hours before an ambulance would arrive, and they had to take the agonising decision to drive her to hospital themselves.

They said: "We kept on ringing to get updates but all they would tell us that it would be four hours or more. In the end we drove her to Hereford hospital.

"When we arrived at about 5.30pm we were greeted with a line of parked ambulances.

"During the time we were waiting for an ambulance we felt completely abandoned. It was as though we were reaching out into a black hole.

"We were given no confidence that there was any kind of time limit to when an ambulance would be available.

"We were given no advice and there was no access to any kind of medical back up in the area from either the hospital or the GP.

"I still worry today about the decision we made to take her in the car but there seemed to be absolutely no other option.

"We weren't sure whether there [were] any other injuries, whether she'd hit her head or whether we could do more damage by moving her but if they've been a private ambulance we would have paid whatever we needed to do to get to hospital in time.

"This experience has left us with the terrifying prospect that if any situations occur where we need urgent medical help that they may not arrive in time, in fact it has made us question about staying in the area.”

Wife died after near 12-hour wait for an ambulance

One respondent tells how his wife died after they waited more than 11 hours for an ambulance – despite being told by call handlers it would arrive in the 'worst case scenario' within five hours.

He said: "My wife and daughter spoke to the ambulance service on a number of occasions during the afternoon explaining my wife’s condition but still no ambulance came.

"The ambulance eventually came at 6.45pm, a delay of 11 hours 45 minutes. Although the ambulance crew did not say anything it was clear that they were concerned about her condition and took her in the ambulance.

"The hospital identified sepsis due to a ruptured colon and continued to try and stabilise her for surgery; unfortunately, they were unsuccessful and she passed away in the early hours of Thursday morning on her way to the theatre."

He added: "I have my wife’s hospital notes and it is clear that they thought she had a good chance of surviving the surgery but she died before getting to the theatre.

"I am convinced that if the WMAS had been honest and told me that there would be an unacceptable delay I would have got her to hospital in either my car or motorhome.

"I could have got her to hospital before 0900 hrs and the hospital would have had an additional 11 hours to stabilise her and operate and she would most probably still be alive today."

The report will be discussed by the county's joint health scrutiny committee on Thursday.

In response a West Midlands Ambulance Service spokesman said: “Sadly, we have seen some patients wait a very long time for ambulances to arrive as a result of long hospital handover delays. The pressures in health and social care meant that when our crews arrived at A&E they were unable to hand over patients to hospital staff and therefore couldn’t respond to the next patient in the community.

“There has been a significant improvement since the turn of the yea, with delays reduced at hospitals across the region, which has allowed ambulances to get to patients more quickly than we have seen for many months.

“In addition, the trust has piloted a new scheme which sees around 40 per cent of Category 2 calls being triaged by clinicians rather than an ambulance being sent automatically. By doing so, those most in need (e.g. strokes and heart attacks) are getting ambulances more quickly.

"Nearly half of calls clinically validated were closed with advice or referred to an alternative service, though a small percentage were upgraded to Category 1, the most urgent. Overall, more patients were seen more quickly than before the trial.

“We continue to work with our partners to find new ways to reduce the delays even further, so that our crews can respond more quickly and save more lives.”