Man dies on family holiday after major ambulance delay

Ambulances were queuing outside the hospital waiting to discharge patients

A man who was on holiday in the South West died of a heart attack after he waited four hours for an ambulance. An inquest into the death of Kevin George Woods heard that on the night he died, the wait for an ambulance was so long due to queues outside local hospitals waiting to discharge patients.

The inquest heard that the ambulance delays were so severe that over 500 hours of combined crew shifts were lost as ambulances queued outside the Royal Cornwall Hospital at Treliske in Truro, Derriford Hospital in Plymouth and the North Devon District Hospital in Barnstaple.

Kevin had travelled to the Falmouth area in Cornwall for a week's holiday in January with his wife Theresa Marie, their son and his girlfriend, reports Cornwall Live. At the Truro-based hearing today (Monday September 30), Mrs Woods described Kevin, a contractor for National Grid, as a fit and healthy man who enjoyed paddle boarding, kayaking, windsurfing and walking in the days leading up to his sudden death.

In a report read out in court, it was revealed that the group of four had visited Godrevy on the morning of January 16, taking a long walk around the headland and on Gwitthian beach with their dog. The 64-year-old man, from Worcestershire, began to complain of a burning sensation in his chest early in the afternoon, initially attributing it to indigestion.

As the day continued, he said he was short of breath. By 9pm, Kevin's condition had significantly worsened, leading to a 999 call being made at 10.24pm when he started coughing up what appeared to be blood.

Kevin was classified as a category 2 case, making it the second highest priority for ambulance dispatch. However, the inquest heard that there were no category 2 ambulances available in Cornwall at the time, with most ambulances queued outside Treliske Hospital waiting to transfer their patients to the emergency department.

Rob Dunt, quality lead in patient safety with the South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SWASFT), informed the inquest that the national response time for category 2 calls is 18 minutes, with 90 per cent of such calls in the South West region being answered within 40 minutes, partly due to the rural geography of the area.

Dunt also revealed that at the time of Kevin's death, SWASFT had been operating under 'red alert' for several weeks, facing immense pressure. Patients categorised as 3 and 4 were advised to make their own way to the hospital as they would likely arrive faster.

Mr Dunt informed the inquest that when Kevin's wife made the emergency call, the service was already handling 33 incidents in the area, with 20 being category 2 emergencies. He revealed that at the time, 27 ambulances were queued outside Derriford and Treliske hospitals, including 13 at Treliske.

By the morning, when an ambulance finally arrived for Kevin after a delay of over four hours, there were still numerous ambulances delayed outside the hospitals.

The inquest heard that it wasn't until Mrs Wood repeatedly called, reporting Kevin's deteriorating condition, that her call was escalated to a category 1 emergency, prompting the dispatch of an ambulance, although not a double-crewed one due to none being available.

Despite this, a general broadcast to crews in Mid Cornwall was made, which included those on break, and a volunteer responded promptly. They arrived swiftly, continuing CPR from Kevin's family and first responders, but despite their efforts for 45 minutes, Kevin was pronounced dead at the scene.

Mrs Wood expressed to the court her belief that the delay in ambulance services contributed to her husband's death, stating: "I feel that the ambulance delay has contributed to Kevin's death. If an ambulance had attended earlier it would have had a different outcome and Kevin would not have died."

According to Mr Dunt, the problem of ambulances queuing outside A&E departments at major Cornwall-serving hospitals results in paramedics being unable to respond on the roads. The subsequent post-mortem report revealed that Kevin died due to an undiagnosed heart condition, one that could have potentially had a different outcome if earlier medical action had been taken.

Mr Dunt went on to say: "On January 16 some 505 hours were lost to handover delays between Treliske, Derriford and North Devon District Hospital. That's more than 46 ambulance shifts lost. Handover delays at Treliske were three hours that day."

It is a situation that the inquest has heard is becoming worryingly commonplace. Only in January, Trelikse suffered 6,884 lost ambulance hours with the average handover times reaching 2h23 minutes.

Throughout June, July, and August, there were significant losses as well; these amounted to 5,095, 3,712, and 3,442 ambulance hours with handover times sitting between an hour and a half to two hours.

Furthermore, during the inquest, Mr Dunt said an inadequate patient turnaround within hospitals caused by the inability to discharge medically-fit individuals was likely to cause of ambulance hold-ups. This is primarily due to a shortfall in social care, community healthcare, or primary healthcare support services.

Assistant coroner for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, Guy Davies, highlighted the systemic breakdown in health and social care following a recent inquest. He announced plans to alert Wes Streeting, Labour Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, by writing a prevention of future deaths report.

This marks the second report regarding ambulance delays in recent weeks. During the inquest into the death of Kevin Woods, Mr Davies expressed that no single entity is accountable for ensuring cohesive health and social care services. He said: "Neither the ambulance trust or the hospital have any control over the causative reasons for these delays because it is a systemic failure."

The inquiry into Kevin's death also uncovered further issues, such as severe challenges in hiring more social care staff. Cornwall currently has a 10 percent vacancy rate in this sector, mirroring the national situation.

Mr Davies emphasised how the systemic collapse of the healthcare framework deprived Kevin of timely access to crucial medical intervention.

In his conclusion, Mr Davies voiced the distressing outcome, he said: "Kevin Woods died from complications from an undiagnosed heart condition following ambulance delays attributable to a systemic failure from the health and social care service which denied him access to potentially life-saving treatment."