Woman died after 'unacceptable' five-hour ambulance wait

Ms Staples was taken to Wrexham Maelor hospital at 03:45 BST after getting injured the evening before

An 86-year-old woman with two broken legs was forced to wait more than five hours for an ambulance just three days before her death.

Lung cancer patient Madeline Staples was injured getting out of bed on 6 April at Lindan Nursing Home, Wrexham.

An inquest heard staff called an ambulance immediately, but Ms Staples was not taken to hospital for five-and-a-half hours and died on 9 April.

The coroner ruled accidental death, but called the delay "unacceptable".

At the inquest in Ruthin, North Wales East and Central coroner John Gittins was told on the night of Ms Staples' injury, ambulances spent 81 hours waiting outside north Wales' three emergency units in Wrexham, Bangor and Bodelwyddan, Denbighshire.

The average time for an ambulance to discharge a patient that night was 308 minutes - the target is 15 minutes.

'Unimaginable pain'

Karen Clarke, from Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board, said the problem was UK-wide but the health board was "struggling more than others".

She added the health board has completed a 90-day plan to tackle the issue and ambulance waiting times were down 20% since October.

Mr Gittins said it was "wholly unacceptable" that Mrs Staples had suffered "unimaginable pain and she had to endure that pain for hours and hours and hours".

"The danger is we become complacent and normalise something [ambulance delays] which is abnormal and unacceptable," he added.

He gave a conclusion of accidental death with the medical cause being bronchial pneumonia brought on by the fractures and by the lung cancer.

He said because of Ms Staples's condition, it was not clear whether the wait for the ambulance was the main factor in her death.