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A 95 year old woman was left lying on a freezing pavement for five hours after falling and breaking her hip, fearing she would die there. Winifred Soanes had been out with her husband Andrew, 92, in Christchurch High Street, Dorset when she fell and was unable to move due to the pain.

Despite multiple calls to 999 by concerned passers-by, she was deemed "was not a priority". Staff from a nearby Mountain Warehouse store provided sleeping bags while charity shops offered blankets and hot water bottles to keep her warm. She fell at 2.30pm but an ambulance did not arrive until 7.45pm.

Have your say! Have you been affected by long wait times for ambulances and casualty departments? Does your local ambulance service need more government investment? Share your experiences in our comments section.

Winifred was eventually taken to Poole Hospital where she awaits specialist surgery for her injuries. Jennifer Baylis, who works in a local charity shop, said: "I can't tell you how upsetting it was, she actually said 'I'm going to die here tonight'. She was in a phenomenal amount of pain and in such a vulnerable position, on a cold floor, totally reliant on complete strangers."

"No first responder available, no police officer, literally no one available to help for over five hours. You feel so helpless, I was so angry that they were in this position. It shouldn't be happening in this day and age.

The NHS are fantastic once help is there. We know how hard they work. But something went very very wrong to leave a 95 year old lady on the pavement of a high street at night."

A spokesperson for the South Western Ambulance Service, said: "We are sorry we were not able to provide a timely response to this patient. Any occasion where the care we provide falls below the high standards our patients deserve and rightly expect is unacceptable."

Handover delays at emergency departments remain one of our biggest challenges. To ensure our ambulances are available to attend the next emergency call within the community, we need to be able to hand patients over within the 15-minute national target. We continue to work hard with our partners in the NHS and social care, to do all we can to improve the service patients receive. ".

In a similar incident in Cornwall recently, a woman had to dial 999 five times before an ambulance arrived to treat her partner who was in severe pain, an inquest has heard. Hayley Hicks called for an ambulance three times as her partner Charles Devos fell ill - and by the time she rang two more times, his condition had deteriorated significantly.

An ambulance finally arrived at their Marazion, Cornwall home at 4.30pm, but Mr Devos suffered a cardiac arrest and tragically passed away shortly after paramedics arrived.

Assistant Coroner for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, Guy Davies, stated that Mr Devos was a fit and healthy man whose death was due to a failure in the health and social care system. He highlighted that at the Royal Cornwall Hospital, there were handover delays exceeding two hours for most months in 2024, with lost ambulance hours peaking at 7,000 in October and averaging around 5,000 per month throughout the year.

Data analysis from England suggests that the A&E crisis is contributing to an increase in deaths due to ambulance delays and extended casualty waits.

Have your say! Have you been affected by long wait times for ambulances and casualty departments? Does your local ambulance service need more government investment? Share your experiences in our comments section.