A Falmouth bus driver diverted her vehicle to take an injured woman to A&E – after the ambulance service said it could take potentially hours to arrive.

Tamsin Fowles took the decision to reroute her bus to the hospital after the elderly woman fell and hit her head while boarding.

Quick thinking Tamsin drove the OTS bus in Falmouth, Cornwall to Royal Cornwall Hospital A&E, on Monday.

After phoning 999 the operator reportedly claimed it could take up to three or four hours for an ambulance to arrive due to massive delays in ambulance services.

Ms Fowles told the BBC: "The lady said there was nothing they could do about it unfortunately, so I said 'forget it I'll take her up there myself'."

Other passengers were then asked to leave the bus and a replacement service was organized to allow Ms Fowles to deliver her new high priority passenger.

Ms Fowles added: "The passengers were really, really good especially because I had eight or nine people on and they were all good as gold.

''No-one could offer enough help, it was nice to see".

In a report to Cornwall Council due to be considered today (Wednesday) South Western Ambulance Service said that it was facing "intolerable" delays with reports coming from paramedics and victims alike of enormous delays in ambulance services.

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One such paramedic, Faye Shepherd, reported yesterday in a post on Twitter that she had waited with one patient in an ambulance for an entire 14 and a half hour shift – showing the extent of delays in the service.

In that same report to Cornwall Council, SWAST attributed the delays to a sudden rise in demand over the last few months, recording the longest response times for life-threatening emergency incidents in the country in September.

The report saud that the “unprecedented and sustained demand” led to the trust declaring a major incident on September 7 which then continued until September 10.