Silverdale man, 92, on floor for 14 hours awaiting ambulance

A 92-year-old man spent nearly 14 hours lying on his kitchen floor waiting for an ambulance, after a fall.

Cyril Pepper, from Silverdale, Staffordshire, said he damaged his arm and was on his back in pain.

A friend who arrived after he pressed his care alarm stated he only had "little sips of water".

The ambulance service said high demand from life-threatening cases sometimes meant it was not able to respond as quickly as patients would want.

Mr Pepper said it was "more than horrific".

He stated: "I want it to be widely known that treatment is disgusting, 14 hours and 92 lying on my back in pain.

"I was kind of asking for the good Lord to take me away or something, that type of thing."

The Staffordshire resident said after pressing his button, friend Debbie Austin was contacted and turned up and a district nurse dressed his arm.

Mr Pepper, who said he has had a stroke, stated Miss Austin stayed with him "to the bitter end".

She said he had hit his head and after being contacted on Monday afternoon, she arrived to find he "really didn't know where he was".

He was diabetic and it was a concern for her that he was not eating, she said.

She stated Mr Pepper could not swallow because of the position he was in and he could not swallow painkillers.

"It's so frustrating when you know that you want to do something... But you can't because you don't know whether you are gonna make more damage," she said.

"It's not the ambulance people's fault. They're doing their best."

West Midlands Ambulance Service said the trust would like to offer its apologies to him "for the delay in responding".

A spokesperson for the service stated paramedics in its control room "spoke to the caller with the patient on several occasions to check whether his condition had changed".

But they added "unfortunately, high levels of demand from people with life-threatening conditions sometimes mean we are not able to respond to incidents as quickly as our patients would want".

The spokesperson said: "We are working closely with all local health services and NHS England to reduce delays and we continue to bolster frontline and control room staffing as part of a range of measures to help manage the current high levels of demand."

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