‘My dad suffered for 19 hours. It stripped him of his dignity in his final days’

Ambulance waiting times across Wales are a lottery and causes hardship and pain for people when they are most vulnerable

A seriously ill 82-year-old man was left waiting 19 hours overnight for an ambulance last year as new data shows that emergency response times in Wales are a ‘postcode lottery’.

Brian Gough, from Knighton, fell unconscious after an infection left him unable to take his Parkinson’s and heart medication. During the long delay, Brian’s devastated daughter, Lesley Jones, waited with him, but was forced to watch on helplessly as her dad struggled overnight.

Lesley said she called for an ambulance at 2.30pm, but one did not arrive until 9am the next morning. Her father died two weeks later in hospital and never made it home.

She told us: “By the time the ambulance came, he was unconscious, on the verge of sepsis and had to be cut out of his pyjamas as I couldn’t move him on my own to clean him up.” Lesley said the incident was “devastating” as it stripped a “hard-working man” of his dignity at the end of his life.

Brian, a former welder, was a “kind, funny man who loved his family”. His son, also called Brian, lives in Australia and the dedicated dad went to visit him every year up until the tragic death of his wife, Betty, in 2019, which he “never got over”.

During his career, Brian put up farm buildings and made fences and could make “anything out of wood”. One of the saddest days for him was when the doctor told him his Parkinson’s had made it too dangerous for him to operate any of his wood working electric tools, his daughter shared. She reflected: “He was a very loving man and a great father to us.”

Remembering the “terrible” night they spent waiting for an ambulance, Lesley said: “I was alone with him and he just kept getting worse until he was unconscious and laid in his own mess, I couldn’t lift him to keep him clean, it upset me very much to see my dad so poorly and his dignity taken from him.”

She said that during the long wait, her dad was seeing things and crying for his wife, adding: “I could do nothing for the man who had been a giant of a man, someone I looked up to all my life, it was devastating.”

The long wait worsened Brian’s condition, his daughter has claimed. When the ambulance finally arrived, the paramedic gave him fluids intravenously to bring him around, as they said he was on the verge of sepsis. Even the ambulance workers were “shocked” at how long they had been waiting, Lesley said.

Addressing Brian’s case, Liam Williams, the Welsh Ambulance Service’s Executive Director of Quality and Nursing, said: “On behalf of everyone at the Welsh Ambulance Service, I would like to extend my deepest sympathies to Mr Gough’s family through what has undoubtedly been a difficult time.” Williams added: “We would encourage Mr Gough’s family to contact us directly if they would like to discuss their experience.”

Brian’s is not a lone case as new data shows that emergency wait times in Wales are a ‘postcode lottery’.

Across Wales, ambulance response times increased by almost an hour on average last year for serious calls. The new data also showed wait times for people in life-threatening situations varying by two and a half hours depending on which area they live in.

A freedom of information request has found that in 2024, Welsh Ambulances took 48 minutes longer to attend to Amber calls, classified as “serious” and “life-threatening”, than the previous year. In some areas, like Powys, ambulances took on average 1 hour and 43 minutes to respond, while in Neath Port Talbot people were waiting about 4 hours and 22 minutes.

Response times for “Red” cases – those classed as “immediately life-threatening” – remained under 15 minutes across all health boards in Wales last year. Earlier this year, new call categories were introduced with a “Purple Arrest” category for those in cardiac and respiratory arrest, which aims to improve out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survival rates in Wales. They currently stand at less than 5 per cent.

Residents in Powys had the quickest response times on average last year, followed by Gwynedd (2 hours 1 min), Ceredigion (2 hours 2 mins) and Isle of Anglesey (2 hours 14 mins). Cardiff, the capital and most densely populated area in Wales, came in fifth place with it taking an ambulance 2 hours 18 mins on average to attend an ‘Amber’ call.

The area with the slowest response time was Neath Port Talbot, followed by Bridgend (4 hours 16 mins), Swansea (4 hours 16 mins) and Carmarthenshire (3 hours 46 minutes). Areas in which ambulances took longer than 2 hours 45 mins to respond included Flintshire, Wrexham, Merthyr Tydfil, Rhondda Cynon Taff, Blaenau Gwent, and Denbighshire.

In every single area in Wales, ambulances took longer than the average time to respond to ‘Amber’ calls for those over the age of 65. The disparity was largest in Swansea, with ambulances taking an additional 28 minutes on average to reach over 65s – 4 hours 44 minutes compared with the average of 4 hours 16 mins.

Terena O’ Brien, 80, fell and broke her hip while crossing a road in Port Talbot. She was taken to a local hotel, where she waited for more than 12 hours on a sofa in the lobby, her son, Tony, said. He explained that hotel guests and wedding attendees continued to walk by as she waited, despite multiple calls from the hotel’s manager and a family member to the emergency services.

Tony said: “This happened at approximately 8pm and the ambulance arrived at 8am then she was kept a further 2 hours in the ambulance outside the A&E department. Luckily the hotel was brilliant and couldn’t do enough to try and make her comfortable.” The fall, plus the wait time and her operation, had an impact on her dementia, her son claimed.

The youngest members of society have also been impacted. Jen Smith, a new mother from Mid Wales, phoned 111 earlier this year when her seven month-old baby, Eira, lost consciousness. She regained consciousness then passed out again, so Smith decided to call for an ambulance, which she was told would take an hour to reach them.

Jen said: “50 minutes later from our 999 call a paramedic called us and did a video review of the baby. At the end she said we needed to get to A&E and that an ambulance would be a further hour wait. At this point we decided to get in the car and drive her in.”

Eira eventually made a full recovery, but the incident made Jen realise that “there is no one coming, not even when the most vulnerable are at risk”. The dog trainer said the scare has prompted her to book a first aid course because they felt “stranded”. Jen explained that she did not want to put the blame on ambulance workers and understands that paramedics are “under a strain”. She added that more needed to be done to help what she feels is an “essential support system”.

Andy Swinburn, the executive director of paramedicine at the Welsh Ambulance Service, said: “We recognise that patients in the amber category often wait far longer than any of us would like. That’s why, last winter, we began testing new approaches to enhance both the safety of our services and the experience of our patients.”

He added: “By harnessing the expertise of clinicians in our clinical contact centres, we reviewed calls, spoke directly with patients, and made more informed decisions to ensure the right care was delivered as quickly and safely as possible. This work has now been embedded into our evolving clinical model and continues to grow.”

The executive director said that the new performance framework would prioritise quality outcomes for patients over “response times alone”, explaining: “As part of this evolution, the new ‘orange: time sensitive’ and ‘yellow: assess and respond’ categories which replace the current amber category, will assist in doing this. These have been designed to ensure patients receive the most appropriate help based on their individual needs, ultimately improving both their experience and outcomes.”