North East Ambulance Service apologises for woman's four-hour wait

The North East Ambulance Service has apologised after a woman was left waiting nearly four hours for an ambulance following an accident on Teesside.

The woman, who crashed on the A19 on Monday, was left in her car nearly three hours for a paramedic to arrive and a further hour for an ambulance to take her to hospital.

The North East Ambulance Services said at the time of the incident it was responding to 52 emergencies.

The service said when it experiences "exceptionally high demand", life-threatening calls are a priority, meaning less serious accidents will not get a quality of service "it would like".