A PENSIONER who broke his hip waited almost 15 hours for an ambulance to arrive, an inquest was told.

Though a senior consultant said that 83-year-old Raymond Gillespie was so ill that the delay made little or no difference a coroner said she was concerned that lives were still being put at risk by such delays.

At the end of the hearing in Ruthin Kate Sutherland, assistant coroner for North Wales East and Central, said she would be issuing a Prevention of Future Deaths (PFD) report to the Welsh Ambulance Services Trust and the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board.

“I am aware that a number of PFD reports have been issued but it seems that we are still in the same position,” she said.

“Quite simply, it doesn’t seem to be getting any better.”

Mr Gillespie, 83, who suffered from dementia, was a patient at the Pembroke House Nursing Home in Coed Pella Road, Colwyn Bay, from August, 2021, after falling several times at home.

In a statement read at the hearing his wife Christine said she could no longer care for him. She visited him regularly, but he was distressed and frustrated.

On the evening of October 8, Mr Gillespie, a former mechanic, was found sitting on the floor, having fallen, and, suspecting he had fractured his femur, staff called 999 at 9.51pm.

The call was classified as an Amber 2 call, which meant an ambulance should arrive within four hours, but that was extended to six hours.

As time went on Mr Gillespie was put on a bed and given food and drink, and Gill Pleming, WAST’s control service manager, told the inquest that the situation was reviewed at intervals.

The call was upgraded and an ambulance eventually arrived at 12.57 on the 9th, just under 15 hours after the initial 999 call.

Mrs Pleming said it had been an extremely busy period across the region, with ambulances being diverted from Glan Clwyd Hospital to Ysbyty Gwynedd in Bangor.

“There was just nothing available,” she said.

Orthopaedic and trauma consultant Stuart Griffin told the inquest that Mr Gillespie, who was suffering from renal failure and had a heart problem, was too unwell to be anaesthetised for surgery.

He praised the Pembroke House staff for their care of Mr Gillespie during the 15-hour wait, and when asked by the coroner whether the ambulance delay had had any impact, he replied: “I think we would have had the same outcome. He was in a sharp downward spiral.”

Mr Gillespie was discharged on October 19 and returned to Pembroke House, where he died four days later.

The coroner accepted the cause of death given by Mr Griffin as “frailty and old age”, with macular dementia and chronic renal failure as contributory factors.

She recorded a conclusion of natural death, contributed to by the fall.