An 85-year-old cancer patient was forced to lay outside in the rain with a broken hip, waiting for an ambulance for seven hours —despite living across the road from a major hospital.
Keith Royles was out cutting his lawn when he broke his hip at his home in Bodelwyddan, in north-east Wales.
His family could have never imagined the horrific turmoil that followed.
Instead of being rushed to hospital to have his broken hip treated, Keith was left laying outside in the rain for seven hours.
His family tried covering him up to keep him warm as best they could, but he was left in awful pain the entire time.
This was all despite the fact the Ysbyty Glan Clwyd Hospital was just across the road from where he lived.
Keith’s daughter Tina said: “We called an ambulance and were told that there would be a wait of between four to seven hours for an ambulance.
“We called several times and my sister even tried to flag down an ambulance but they said they couldn't help.”
However, when paramedics finally arrived after an agonising wait, Keith was told that he wouldn’t be taken to the nearby hospital, but to one 30 miles away instead.
This was due to immense pressures on the local hospital making it ‘too busy’.
Tina said the family argued that her father, who suffers from terminal cancer, should be taken to the hospital across the road, and he eventually was.
Speaking to S4C programme Y Byd ar Bedwar, she said: “As a family, we're not faulting the staff, but the system is broken.
“I feel sorry for the people that have gotten into the service because it must be so frustrating and heartbreaking to be in that situation.
“They must be leaving in their droves.”
Lee Brooks, Executive Director of Operations at the Welsh Ambulance Service, said: “We are deeply sorry about Mr Royles’ experience, which was no doubt a painful and anxious wait for all involved.
“We offer patients an estimated time of arrival to be transparent and to empower callers to fully consider their options, and do not deny that up to seven hours is an unacceptable wait for help.
“Our emergency ambulance service exists to deliver life-saving interventions and take patients promptly to hospital, so it’s frustrating when we can’t do that because of issues beyond our control.
“Hospital handover delays remain the single biggest reason we cannot get to some patients quickly.
“We lost 29,000 hours to handover delays across Wales in October, more than 7,500 of which were in North Wales alone.
“Despite record recruitment, including the creation of 400 extra posts in our Emergency Medical Service in the last three years, it is not enough to plug this lost capacity.
“It’ll take a system-wide effort to resolve a system-wide issue and we continue to play our part to alleviate the pressure by treating more patients over the phone and at home and referring them to more appropriate areas of the NHS, negating the need for a trip to the Emergency Department.
“New rosters will ensure that our finite resources are better aligned to demand, and we are working hard to see up to 100 additional frontline workers operational from late January.
“We invite the Royles’ family to contact us directly if they wish to discuss their experience.
“Our ask of the public is only to call 999 in a serious or life-threatening emergency – help protect our precious resources for those who need us most.”
