THE family of a 102-year-old war veteran who waited four hours for an ambulance say any apology must mean change.

On the 70th anniversary of VJ Day, World War Two veteran Harold Beeforth, from Middlesbrough, was left on the floor of his nursing home for hours after falling and injuring his head.

Advised not to move him, staff and family members waited for hours for the arrival of paramedics who had been dealing with “exceptional demand”.

The North East Ambulance Service has since apologised to the family and said they had prioritised life-threatening cases.

A spokeswoman said the service was looking into the incident and were happy to speak to the family.

She said: “We’re very sorry Mr Beeforth had to wait so long after suffering what must have been a painful fall, especially considering his age.

“The weekend saw exceptional demand on our 999-service – during one spell we were handling over 120 of the highest category calls.

“At times like these, we must go to the cases where life is in immediate danger.

“That’s not to diminish the injury suffered by Mr Beeforth or the worry this must have caused his family.”

Today, Mr Beeforth’s family – including children Linda Smith, Dorothy Parry and John Beeforth - said the apology must inspire action and called for change.

Mrs Smith said: “We are not troublemakers and this is not political, nor a witch-hunt – we are three pensioners fighting for our dad as he would have for us.

“We’re grateful for the apology but it seems like platitudes – we hope there’s some way of them using this experience to relieve their service.

“It’s awful they have to deal with this workload and we sympathise but this is not good enough.

“There’s something radically wrong with a society that can look for excuses rather than stare this in the eye and say we know it’s wrong, how can we fix it.

“Let’s work together and look at what society needs instead of glossing over incidents like this.

“This seems like a David and Goliath situation, only David has no sling – Dad can’t fight himself now, we must do it for him.

“He would have hated the publicity but would have done what he could to highlight inequality and injustice.”

Mr Beeforth is recovering from his fall. Mrs Smith said: “He’s a tough old boot and he’s still smiling.”