Injured pensioner waits two hours on pavement outside Waitrose in Havant for ambulance

The woman was unable to walk after hurting her knee outside Waitrose in North Street, Havant, on Saturday.

An ambulance was called just before 9am but it did not arrive until 10.38am.

Waitrose staff kept her warm with a blanket and cups of tea.

In a statement Scas said it was sorry for the delay and added: ‘The incident was categorised as a Green 2 call – non-life threatening, requiring a response in 30 minutes.

‘At the time we were notified of the incident, we were experiencing a high level of demand for emergency responses in the area as well as having a number of ambulances unavailable to us as they were at local emergency departments. Staff in our clinical co-ordination centre remained in contact with the patient and an off-duty nurse at the scene during the delay, checking on the status of the patient, apologising for the delay and providing advice in terms of what to do should the patient’s condition worsen.’

The incident comes as the ambulance service faces questions of the availability of vehicles after firefighters took a man to hospital following a Portsmouth flats blaze.