Stroke patient had to get bus to Ipswich Hospital says wife

A father suffering a stroke had to take two buses to hospital when his ambulance was cancelled, his wife said.

Lauren Matthews said when her husband Gavin was then cleared to leave Ipswich Hospital a few hours later, his symptoms reappeared but an ambulance was once more diverted elsewhere.

After arriving at A&E for a second time thanks to family help, Mr Matthews then had to wait seven hours, she said.

The East of England Ambulance Service has apologised to the couple.

Mrs Matthews said her husband Gavin, 45, who they share a six-year-old daughter with, had a seizure and developed a loss of feeling in his right arm on the afternoon of 16 November.

She said an ambulance was dispatched, but shortly afterwards they received a call saying it had been cancelled and they were advised to make their own way to hospital.

Lacking money for a taxi, she said they used tickets purchased earlier in the day to take two buses from their home on the edge of Ipswich to the hospital, about five miles (8km) away.

Speaking of the bus journey, Mrs Matthews said: "He kept getting stared at because obviously he kept having the seizures on the bus and we just wanted to blank everything out and get there. I tried to make him as comfortable as you possibly could."

After an hour's journey, Mrs Matthews said an A&E doctor saw him and then cleared them to return home after a couple of hours.

However, at 01:00 GMT the next morning, Mr Matthews had another seizure and the symptoms reappeared.

"He couldn't move, so we called an ambulance again," said Mrs Matthews.

"They went through the stroke evaluation questions and they said we'll send an ambulance for you. Then again twenty minutes later, cancelled."

This time family members were available and on arrival to their home Mrs Matthews said she carried her husband to a car, where he was then driven to hospital.

She said he was triaged quickly at A&E, but did not get to see a doctor until about 10:00 GMT - seven hours after he arrived.

Mrs Matthews said a Computerized Tomography (CT) scan carried out later that day confirmed he had suffered a stroke.

He remains at the hospital and has lost the ability to walk, she said, adding at one point he had also been forced to lie in a soiled bed, despite asking staff for help.

"A stroke is life-threatening. You have four hours in which to get the right treatment for that kind of thing and they failed him. He's had his life changed forever," said Mrs Matthews.

The couple live in a flat and Mrs Matthews said unless they could find a property that was adapted for a wheelchair, her husband would not be able to return home unless he regained the ability to walk.

The East of England Ambulance Service has repeatedly warned it is under "extreme pressure". For the past 16 months it has been operating at the National Ambulance Resilience Unit's Resource Escalation Action Plan (REAP) Level 4 - the highest alert level for ambulance services.

An ambulance service spokesman said: "We apologise to Mr Matthews and his wife for their experience.

"When demand on the service is extremely high, we must prioritise those with immediate life-threatening conditions and advise some lower category calls to make their own way to hospital, once reviewed by a clinician.

"We are working closely with hospitals to reduce handover delays, getting more ambulance crews back out on the road to improve care for our patients and investing in more senior clinical presence within our control centre to further improve patient safety."

Dr Angela Tillett, chief medical officer at East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Ipswich Hospital, said: "We were very sorry to hear about the issues raised by Mrs Matthews about the standards of care Mr Matthews has received at Ipswich Hospital.

"An investigation is under way and we will involve Mr and Mrs Matthews fully with our review and findings."

Find BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email [email protected]