[roryirvine]

Yeah. Ambulance services have been hard-pressed in the UK in recent years, especially in the immediate aftermath of Covid - but this should very clearly have been a Category 1 call (unconscious, difficulty breathing, or heart attack symptoms).

Last month in England (each country in the UK has its own stats), the mean response time (from dialling 999 to the ambulance arriving) for Cat 1 was 8 mins 1 second, and the 90th %ile time was 14m18s. That's a bit above the target response time of 7 mins, but a 3 hour wait strongly suggests a miscategorisation.

"Is the patient breathing? Are they conscious?" are literally the first words on the dispatcher's script, so something seems to have gone terribly wrong here.