90-year-old woman forced to wait 40-hours for ambulance after fall

A 90-year-old woman with a suspected hip fracture had to wait 40 hours for an ambulance, and was left in the vehicle outside of A&E overnight waiting for an available bed.

Steven Syms, from St Austwell in Cornwall, said that he called 999 for his mother Daphne following a fall on Sunday, 14 August, but paramedics did not arrive until Tuesday.

Daphne was then forced to wait in an ambulance overnight outside of the hospital as there was a queue to enter the A&E department.

“The system is totally broken,” Mr Syms told BBC Radio Cornwall.

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