Family of man, 87, who waited 15 hours for ambulance say system is ‘broken’

The family of an 87-year-old man who had to wait 15 hours for an ambulance in a makeshift shelter made out of a garden football goal after a fall has said the emergency healthcare system is “broken”.

Relatives used umbrellas and pieces of tarpaulin to try to keep retired welder David Wakeley warm and dry when he fell on the patio at his home in Cornwall, suffering broken bones and head wounds.

His son Phil Wakeley said on Friday that his father, who has prostate cancer, was still in a lot of pain in hospital and the whole family was traumatised by what happened.

“The system isn’t working at all,” he said. “To see my dad lying on a concrete floor for that amount of time was terrible. It became apparent nobody was going to come quickly so with rain coming in it was a matter of keeping him warm and dry and as comfortable as possible.

“It’s not the paramedics’ fault – when they came their care was superb, they were very caring, I’ve got no complaints there. But the system’s not right somehow, something’s broken. Our focus now is on getting dad better and getting him back home.”

Health campaigners and politicians expressed concern over the case, with one Cornish Conservative MP saying she had asked the health secretary, Steve Barclay, to visit Cornwall to see for himself the pressure on the services in the far south-west of England.

Wakeley’s family say they called for help at about 7.30pm on Monday but an ambulance did not arrive until 11am on Tuesday. He had fractured ribs, a fractured pelvis, grazes to his head and a cut to his arm.

Because they had been advised not to move him, they tried to protect him from the elements as they waited. His son, other relatives and neighbours did their best to keep him safe and comfortable.

They used a neighbour’s goal, a tarpaulin found in a garage and umbrellas to try to make the shelter rainproof. Wakeley had recently been given a heated blanket, which helped keep him warm. “We had to make the best of a difficult situation,” said Phil Wakeley. His father is now being treated at Royal Cornwall hospital in Truro.

In a report published in May, the Care Quality Commission said ambulance waiting response times in Cornwall were “extremely concerning and pose a high level of risk to patient safety”. It added: “Ambulance handover delays at hospitals in the region were some of the highest recorded in England. This resulted in people being treated in the ambulances outside of the hospital, it also meant a significant reduction in the number of ambulances available to respond to 999 calls.”

Andrew George, the chair of Save our NHS Cornwall and a Liberal Democrat councillor, said the case exposed “our failing, threadbare NHS. We can’t carry on like this.

“The 20-30 ambulances regularly camped outside Cornwall’s only emergency department, often waiting whole shifts trying to offload seriously ill patients, is a scandal which needs urgent attention but those responsible are off at hustings attempting to out-Thatcher each other.”

Cherilyn Mackrory, the Conservative MP for Truro and Falmouth, said the situation was “horrible” and she had written to the health secretary and he had promised to visit Cornwall.

She said: “These delays are not to do with ambulance service call handlers; they are a whole-system issue and are impacted by acute challenges elsewhere in the system, particularly with hospital capacity and patient flow. The issues include delayed discharges to social care and other services, as well as bed occupancy. A whole-system approach is needed to tackle this issue.”

A spokesperson for Cornwall and Isles of Scilly’s integrated care system said: “Like other parts of the country, our health and care system continues to experience pressure. The reasons for this are complex, including high demand for primary and secondary care, mental health services and adult social care.”

A spokesperson for South Western ambulance service NHS foundation trust said “We are shocked and sorry for the experience Mr Wakeley endured. Our ambulance clinicians strive every day to give their best to patients. Health and social care services are under enormous pressure.”