AN elderly woman who fell over and injured herself at a residential home had to wait more than six hours for an ambulance.

The wait has led to her son making a formal complaint over the delays in getting help for his 87-year-old mother.

Graeme Hicks said his mother was found on the floor by staff at Poldhu Care Home in Mullion at around 6.30am on Saturday.

She had fallen over and had visibly injured her face which staff believed she had hit on a chair as she fell. The pensioner also had leg injuries.

Staff at the home called for an ambulance and did not want to move her as they feared they could cause more injuries.

After an hour of waiting the staff contacted the ambulance service again to see where they had got to and were assured that help was on its way.

By 10.15am Mr Hicks and his brother had arrived at the home and were shocked to find that their mother had not been visited by paramedics.

Mr Hicks said: “I rang them (the ambulance service) up and asked what was going on and whether they were going to send an ambulance at all.

“At first they didn’t know where Poldhu was so I had to explain to them and then I asked if they would please send an ambulance but they wouldn’t commit to it, they said it was a matter of priority.”

Mr Hicks said he understood that the ambulance service had to prioritise calls but said staff at the home were becoming increasingly concerned about his mother and he at one point feared that she might die.

The ambulance did arrive at the home at around 12.30pm, six hours after the first phone call.

Mr Hicks’ mother, who suffers from vascular dementia, was taken to hospital where she was treated for the injuries to her face along with extensive bruising.

He said: “Fortunately my mother was not seriously injured but we had no way of knowing that at the time.”

A spokesman for South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SWASFT) said: “We are very sorry that we did not reach this patient sooner.

“This patient was initially assessed by staff in our 999 Control Hub, and then reviewed by a clinician. She was supported by healthcare professionals at the nursing home who were advised to call 999 again if her condition worsened. Based on the information given to our staff, there was considered to be no immediate threat to her life.

“Like all ambulance services across the country, we continue to see an unprecedented rise in demand for our services. As such, we must prioritise our response for those most critically ill patients. Unfortunately, with finite resources, this means that occasionally those patients assessed as being less urgent can experience a delay.

“We would not wish for any patient to experience a long wait, and we have been working exceptionally hard to improve our response time performance. We will continue to work with our strategic partners to negotiate further resources to enable us to deliver the highest quality response to patients.”