AN ELDERLY woman who died at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd had to wait more than 14 hours for an ambulance to arrive at her home after she collapsed.

Shirley Hughes died aged 82 at the Bodelwyddan hospital on June 6, having fallen at home five days earlier.

Following a full inquest into her death, which heard that Mrs Hughes spent “hours lying on the floor before being treated and admitted to hospital”, coroner John Gittins has issued a Prevention of Future Deaths (PFD) report to the Welsh Ambulance Services Trust (WAST).

The inquest, which concluded on October 23, heard that a 999 call was made to WAST at 5.13pm on June 1 after Mrs Hughes collapsed, and was initially allocated an “amber two” response.

But due to resource issues, no ambulance could attend, and at 4.13am the next morning, the response was upgraded to “amber one”, due to the amount of time Mrs Hughes had by then been waiting. 

Despite this upgrade, no ambulance was available until 7.48am on June 2.

Mrs Hughes died at Glan Clwyd four days later, with her medical cause of death stated as sepsis, contributed to by rhabdomyolysis, diabetes mellitus and lymphoedema.

Mr Gittins, senior coroner for North Wales (East and Central), recorded a conclusion of death arising from natural causes.

But in his PFD report, he questioned whether WAST’s Medical Priority Dispatch System (MPDS) “remains fit for purposes”.

MPDS involves a code being generated, which is then matched to a response priority to indicate the most appropriate resource to use.

He wrote:  “For many years, myself and other coroners have raised concerns regarding so-called ‘ambulance delays’, and I recognise that the challenges faced by WAST around the availability of resources are the result of multifactorial issues.

“At the inquest of Mrs Hughes, I was advised that MPDS was introduced in 2015 and at that time it was envisaged that an ‘amber one’ priority call would be responded to in 20 minutes.

“However, it was clearly the case that the multifactorial issues which prevail today were not envisaged at that time and that, as a consequence, this raises questions as to whether the MPDS system remains fit for purposes.

“As a result of this evidence, I am concerned that lives are being put at risk.”

WAST is duty-bound to respond to Mr Gittins’ report by December 23.