MP tells of 85-year old woman with dementia who waited 18 hours for an ambulance

Helen Morgan described the scale of ambulance delays as “absolutely shocking” as she highlighted the case of an 85-year-old woman with dementia who had to wait 18 hours for an ambulance to arrive at her home after suffering a suspected broken hip.

She highlighted what she called the huge scale of problems facing the health system, including bed-blocking in hospitals, struggling social care and over-capacity A&Es such as those in Shrewsbury and Telford where a critical incident has again been declared this week.

Her comments came as MPs from across the political divide in a debate on ambulance and emergency department care organised by the Liberal Democrats.

The North Shropshire MP said: “I’ve had an adjournment debate with the minister on this subject, and a meeting with the former Secretary of State for Health Sajid Javid. And yet this Government still hasn’t got a grip on this problem.

“As a proud resident of north Shropshire, I was aware of our ambulance crisis before I was elected in December, and before I started campaigning in November.

"It’s become evident that the scale of the crisis is absolutely shocking.”

Helen called on Steve Barclay, the new Health Secretary, to commission the CQC to investigate ambulance delays – a request which has been supported by the nursing boss of West Midlands Ambulance Service Mark Docherty.

He has previously warned that the ambulance service in the region is set to collapse entirely by mid August as a result of the overwhelming pressure on the service.

Helen added: “The Government have failed to address it. They’ve thrown our hardworking doctors and nurses under the bus. We’re short of nurses, we’re short of carers, we’re short of GPs and we’re short of decision-making doctors in A&E.”

Figures from West Midlands Ambulance Service show how injured people in Shropshire have to wait far longer than people in urban areas for an ambulance and the MP said: "A decent outcome in Birmingham and the Black country conurbation is masking a deep crisis in the countryside."

She said hardworking frontline NHS staff were “struggling to deal with a broken social care service, a hospital bed crisis and people who can’t access a GP and so are turning up at A&E”.

"Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust have declared yet another critical incident this week. I have lost count of the number of times that has happened this year.”

$esearch by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine has discovered that two-thirds of A&E clinical leads are not confident their organisation will safely manage winter pressures.