A FORMER health authority chairman says she has been left “angry and totally helpless” after it took more than seven hours for her 88-year-old mother to be seen by hospital doctors after a fall.

Gloria Wills, a former chairman of the now disbanded Sedgefield Primary Care Trust, spoke out after it took more than three hours for an ambulance to respond to a 999 call and then a further three hours before her mother was properly examined at the University Hospital of North Durham.

“What has the NHS come to,” asked Mrs Wills, who is also a member of Sedgefield Town Council.

The saga began shortly after midnight on Monday when staff at her mother’s nursing home called her to say she had had a bad fall.

“I found her on the floor of her room, covered with a blanket, staff using a cold compress on her brow which was extremely swollen and bruised, her nose dripping with blood,” said Mrs Wills.

Staff at the home in West Cornforth rang 999 for an ambulance at 12.05am. They were told by the ambulance service to leave her where she was, avoid giving her a drink and to keep her comfortable as an ambulance would be with her shortly.

At 2.05am - two hours later - Mrs Wills rang 999 again and was told there was “a severe delay” for ambulances across the North-East and the call would be dealt with as soon as possible.

At 3am there was still no ambulance but half an hour later a St John’s ambulance arrived and took Mrs Knowles, who has dementia, to the University Hospital of North Durham.

“We arrived at A&E at 4.20am and were literally bundled into an examination room. All rooms were full. The usual observations were taken and then nothing,” she said.

At 5.55pm Mrs Wills spoke to a member of staff to try to find out what the delay was - as six hours had now passed since her fall.

“I complained to a senior member of staff, to be told that there was a three hour delay on admission and that had been the case in the department for weeks. The bed situation was dire with only one free bed,” she told The Northern Echo.

Confused, uncomfortable, upset and parched, Mrs Knowles was not seen until around 7.15am and then sent for an x-ray.

She finally got home – in the family’s own transport - at around 8.30am with a broken nose and trauma to the forehead.

Mrs Wills said she was disturbed at how pressured staff had appeared.

“This is not just about my mother it is about the service. It is heading for a major meltdown,” she added.

A spokeswoman for the NEAS said: “Nationally, ambulance services and hospitals are under extreme pressure at the moment. In recent weeks, ourselves and some local hospitals have been coping with high levels of demand. Inevitably, this has meant that in some cases our response times have been affected.

"We would like to apologise to the patient and her mother for the delay”

Timeline

12.05am Care home staff call 999

2.05am Follow up call. Told that there were severe ambulance delays

3.30am Ambulance arrives

4.20am Elderly patient arrives at A&E at North Durham Hospital

7.15am Patient eventually seen in A&E and sent for X-ray

8.15am Patient arrives home