AN elderly woman who doctors feared had sepsis had to wait almost 24 hours before an ambulance arrived to take her to hospital.

Anna Durham, 88, was a patient at Mountnessing Court reablement centre, in Billericay, when doctors called 999.

The ambulance to take her to hospital arrived 20 hours later.

Luckily Mrs Durham did not have the condition and was sent back to the care centre.

However the “appalling service” she experienced did not stop there.

On the day she was discharged from Mountnessing Court reablement centre, she again had to wait hours for a non-emergency ambulance to be taken home which instead of arriving at the arranged time of 9am still wasn’t there at 7pm that evening.

Eventually, her son, Essex County Councillor Mark Durham, had to take her home. But he was left unimpressed with the service and asked questions on how it could be improved at a health scrutiny committee meeting.

He said: “The list of failures with the ambulance service and personal experience and actually that I’ve received as a member go on and on.

“In light of this, I would welcome a response from the service itself and ask the board’s view of how the health and care system can come together to stop this sort of appalling experience from happening again to myself or to any other resident of this county.”

Mrs Durham had initially been taken to Broomfield Hospital after a serious fall in London where she broke her hip.

Following a failed hip replacement 18 months ago she had her hip joint removed. She was then taken to Mountnessing Court Reablement Hospital in Billericay where in May doctors suspected sepsis and called for an ambulance Mr Durham added speaking after the meeting: “That was at 11am on a Saturday morning and it came 20 hours later.”

Kate Vaughton, deputy chief executive of the East of England Ambulance service, said the service does do not provide discharge services but added: “I think as the example just demonstrates it’s still a difficult context in which we are operating.

“So we have improved our response times but they are still not where they need to be. I think it’s really important to say that upfront .”