Cwmbran: Man with broken hip taken to hospital tied to plank

A man was taken to hospital strapped to a plank in the back of a van when his granddaughter was told no ambulances were available after breaking his hip.

Nicole Lea found Melvyn Ryan behind the door of his home after he pressed an emergency call button around his neck.

When she got there she discovered the 89-year-old Suez Crisis veteran also had a broken shoulder.

The Welsh Ambulance Service said Mr Ryan's experience was below the service it aimed to offer.

She said she went to grandfather-of-eight Mr Ryan's home, in Cwmbran, Torfaen, after being contacted just after midnight on Friday.

She said: "I didn't waste any time in calling 999 and gave them my details. And they turned around and said they were unable to send anyone, there wasn't any help to send and that I'd have to find a way of getting him there myself."

The call handler advised her to call the out-of-hours GP before saying she had to go to deal with other calls.

"I was just sat there then, on my own on the floor with my 89-year-old grandfather wondering how we were going to get out of this situation," Ms Lea, from Pontypool, said.

Ms Lea said knew she had to do something and kept her grandfather chatting as she figured things out.

She did not call the GP as she thought it would be a waste of time.

"With my partner and my mum's help we managed to come up with the idea of getting him onto a plank of wood and into the back of my partner's van to get him up to hospital," Ms Lea said.

Once in the van he was driven to Grange University Hospital, in Cwmbran.

"We got him onto this plank of wood, we secured him there, kept him as warm as possible, got him into the back of the van and took him straight up to hospital," Ms Lea said.

"Mr Ryan has had what sounds like the most appalling of experience," said Dr Iona Collins, chairwoman of the British Medical Association (BMA) Cymru.

"How must the ambulance service must feel when they are getting calls like this? Obvious its an emergency and they need help and they are unable to help," she added.

"This is the stuff of nightmares."

However, Ms Lea said the staff at the hospital were "amazing".

"It was just the utter shock of being told that no help was coming and the thought in my head was, 'Oh my God, he's going to die," Ms Lea said.

"I genuinely thought we were going to lose him. I didn't think that we'd be able to get him there in time and safe enough because any slight movement could have killed him."

She said knowing the ambulance service was too stretched to send help was "horrifying".

"We were very fortunate in the fact that we did have a large van and that I had family there that were able to come and assist," Ms Lea said.

"If I was on my own I can't imagine how that situation would have panned out."

"It's just something that does not sit right in this day and age," she said.

Ms Lea said she had sympathy for the NHS but was angry the elderly were not cared for "like they should be".

Ms Lea said: "I do believe something can be done and needs to be done about this situation it cannot continue the way it is."

She said her grandfather was doing well after having an operation on his hip.

"We're very very lucky with the way things have panned out," she said.

Welsh Ambulance Service operations director, Lee Brooks, said: "We are sorry to hear about Mr Ryan's experience earlier this week, it is certainly below the level of service that we aim to offer.

"We appreciate why this would be upsetting for both Mr Ryan and his family, as it is for us and our people as well," he said.

He invited Mr Ryan and his family to get contact with the service so the matter could be investigated.

Welsh Ambulance Service boss, Jason Killens, said the service took a fifth more 999 calls than the previous weekend and 300% more 111 calls.

On Sunday the Welsh Ambulance Service declared a "business continuity incident", which has since been stood down.

Mr Killens said: "There are a number of things coming together. We have got the cold weather, we have got the Christmas party season starting to get under way and we have got concerns in the community about strep A.

"That has certainly driven a lot of that additional work in the 111 service."

Mr Killens said combined with pressure in health, social and emergency care in Wales, this had led to ambulances being delayed in handing over patients at emergency departments.

"Patients did wait much longer over the weekend," he said.

Mr Brooks said business continuity incidents were rare.

"The demand experienced at the weekend was unprecedented, we received in excess of 2,000 emergency 999 calls and received over 10,000 calls into NHS 111 Wales on both Saturday and Sunday," he said.

"Please only call 999 in a life-threatening emergency," Mr Brooks said.

"That's a cardiac arrest, chest pain or breathing difficulties, loss of consciousness, choking, or catastrophic bleeding.

"If the situation is not a life-threatening emergency, then it's important that you use one of the many alternatives to 999."

Cwm Taf Morgannwg Health Board's deputy chief operating officer, Sarah James, said high demand was ongoing.

She said: "We want to reassure our communities that we are working together with all of our key partners, including the Welsh Ambulance Service and our three local authorities in Bridgend, Rhondda Cynon Taf and Merthyr Tydfil, to do all we can to improve the situation quickly for our patients.

Aneurin Bevan Health Board said it was dealing with large numbers of winter viruses.

This was putting "severe" pressure on the system, it said, including on the children's emergency assessment unit and GP services.

"This morning, Monday, there were already more than 100 patients waiting in our emergency department by 10am," a spokesman said.

They warned anyone without a life-threatening condition should be prepared for an "exceptionally" long wait.