A KEIGHLEY woman whose 91-year-old husband had to wait nearly two hours for an ambulance after falling and breaking his hip says she is "unsurprised" at top-level criticisms of the service.

Health inspectors found Yorkshire Ambulance Service (YAS) was failing to meet national targets for responding to life-threatening conditions within eight minutes, and that it had encountered major difficulties recruiting paramedics.

England's Chief Inspector of Hospitals has told YAS it must improve some services, following the inspection by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

Elaine Clewer, whose husband, Ernest, lay in agony outside their Hillworth Village home while Good Samaritans rang the ambulance service five times, said this week: "I am not surprised at all to learn the service isn't meeting the response time targets.

"I appreciate resources are stretched but what do they class as a priority?

"We live only ten minutes away from the hospital but it took almost two hours for an ambulance to arrive.

"Eventually, we received an apology from the ambulance service but we've never had proper answers."

Mrs Clewer, 80, says her husband is still suffering in the wake of the incident last December.

"He still has to use a frame when he's walking and his confidence has been badly affected – he is terrified of falling again," she added.

When an ambulance crew eventually did arrive, the retired engineer was taken to Airedale Hospital where he underwent hip replacement surgery the following day.

The ambulance service said afterwards the delay had been caused by exceptionally high demand.

The CQC inspection also found a large number of ambulances were dirty – inside and out – and procedures for disposing of clinical waste gave cause for concern.

Inspectors were particularly concerned at a lack of checks on equipment by the hazardous area response team and a large amount of lifesaving equipment had passed its expiry date.

But the team did highlight areas of outstanding practice, including support for 1,055 community first responders.

YAS chief executive, Rod Barnes, said: "The report recognises the challenges we and services nationally face in recruiting and training sufficient staff numbers to meet rising levels of demand and the pressures this places on existing staff and response times."

He said concerns about “equipment and consumables” in the hazardous area response team were addressed during the inspection. Mnitoring for daily cleaning had been tightened up, along with increased focus on mandatory training.

There is now “greater stability” at senior management level and improved staff engagement, he added.