My mum died after an 11-hour ambulance wait – the system is failing patients and health workers

When I read the recent shocking headlines about NHS paramedics watching patients die in the back of ambulances due to A&E delays, my mind immediately went to my dear mum Jackie. She was the person I loved most in the world, and I miss her every day.

It was often said that mum was a “young” 78-year-old in her attitude. She loved getting her hair done and going and watching live music in our village with her friends. She was a regular and popular figure at church, loved by her family and her community alike.

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On 10 July 2022, in the early hours of the morning, mum had a nasty fall at home and was unable to move. An ambulance was called, but it didn’t arrive for 11 agonising hours. Mum spent that time on the floor, in pain and stripped of dignity. She kept asking me when help was coming and I didn’t know how to answer. She eventually made it to hospital, but died two days later after her infection had turned to sepsis.

I do not blame the paramedics, who are doing the best job they can in extremely tough conditions. The ones who finally arrived couldn’t have been any more kind and considerate. But the system is failing both patients and health workers.

I later found out that on the day mum had her fall, ambulances were in fact backed up outside our nearest hospital. Paramedics weren’t able to offload people into the hospital because beds were full with many patients who had no care package for them at home.

So it’s clear from my mum’s story, and the stories of countless other families across the country, that the deadly delays we are seeing in A&E departments are a symptom of much wider structural challenges facing the entire health service. These problems won’t be fixed by tinkering round the edges or giving tiny funding boosts in a few areas.

The knowledge that, nearly three years on from my mum’s death, patients and health workers are still facing the same dire conditions is both heartbreaking and angering.

When Labour won the 2024 election, they vowed to make tackling the NHS crisis a number one priority. After 14 years of Conservative-driven cuts, underfunding and privatisation, I and millions of other NHS patients finally felt some hope that things might change.

Sadly, this has not been borne out in reality. Although we have seen some improvements in certain areas such as reductions in waiting lists and higher volumes of appointments, there have been other policy announcements from Labour that have rung alarm bells.

In January, the government announced it was launching an independent commission to reform social care and create a National Care Service. As mum’s story shows, fixing social care is an absolutely essential part of tackling bottlenecks and rebuilding our health service. But here’s the catch: any reforms generated by this commission will not come into practice until at least 2028. This delay is far more years than patients, carers and the NHS can wait, and it will cost lives.

The truth is that tackling this crisis is going to require substantial and sustained extra investment into our health service, funded by progressive taxation. Analysis by the Health Foundation last year found that on health spending, Germany had spent 55% more per capita and France 26% more than the UK. We are lagging behind to the tune of tens of billions of pounds every year, yet Labour refuse to act on this.

Instead, they have announced sweeping cuts across parts of the National Health Service, with the NHS Confederation recently warning that hospitals in England could be forced to axe 100,000 jobs in response to these brutal cost-cutting orders.

Meanwhile, they have also announced a new deal with the “independent sector” (ie private companies) which will see more NHS patients being treated in profit-making clinics. This will mean that the private sector’s role in cutting NHS waiting lists in England will rise by 20%.

So private healthcare providers are laughing all the way to the bank, while our NHS is squeezed tighter and patients continue to be put at risk by deadly delays. This cannot be allowed to continue. Patients need real change, not more of the same failed policies we had from the previous government.

I’ll never know what might have happened if an ambulance had arrived sooner back on that day in July 2022. One thing I do know is that mum deserved so much better than those long hours waiting for help to come. Speaking publicly about our story is hard, but I’m doing it to stop this from happening to other families in future. I just hope that the government will listen.

Mathew Hulbert is a patient leader at Just Treatment.

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