A former Euro MP today made a damning attack against the ambulance service after an inquest heard a crew sent to his choking aunt in Ilkley ended up in the wrong town.
Although the inquest ruled the delay played no part in the death of 79-year-old Margaret Taylor, her nephew Michael McGowan - the former MEP for Leeds - was today considering what action to take over the incident.
Bosses at West Yorkshire Metropolitan Ambulance Service have invited Mr McGowan to a meeting to raise his concerns.
He is angry over the service's estimated response time - even without the delay - and also that it did not have a system to pinpoint addresses using postcodes.
Miss Taylor, a retired clerical assistant, had been living at the Rombolds Nursing Home in Crossbeck Lane, Ilkley, since May last year. She had previously worked at Bradford Royal Infirmary and Wharfedale General Hospital. Staff at the home tried in vain to save her after she began choking on pieces of meat while having her lunch on January 4. The Bradford inquest heard that Miss Taylor's food had been cut up for her because of possible problems with swallowing. The alarm was raised by a care assistant when she got into difficulties.
Nurse Ruth Duffisey managed to get three or four pieces out of her mouth, but a post-mortem examination later revealed that one piece of pork was lodged further down her throat, blocking her airway.
Consultant pathologist Dr Phillip Dacosta told the hearing that staff would not have been able to see the blockage and it would have taken a skilled anaesthetist with specialist equipment to retrieve it.
The inquest heard that the ambulance from Airedale General Hospital mistakenly went to Prospect Road, Burley-in-Wharfedale, and did not arrive at the home until more than half an hour after the first emergency call was made.
When the paramedics arrived they confirmed that Miss Taylor had died in her bedroom at the home.
After the inquest Mr McGowan said: "The ambulance service claimed it took 34 minutes for the vehicle to arrive when staff at the nursing home say it was 45 minutes. Both of these are totally unacceptable in terms of an emergency response.
"WYMAS inform me that its target is to reach 50 per cent of calls in eight minutes and 95 per cent within 14 minutes. It is a very long way outside these targets."
Recording a verdict of accidental death, Mr Whittaker concluded that because of the circumstances and the position of the piece of meat, Miss Taylor was inevitably going to die.
A WYMAS spokesman said: "The system at the moment doesn't allow us to trace addresses through postcodes but we will review that with our system provider."
He added: "We shall be introducing a call identifier system and will be happy to meet Mr McGowan to discuss his concerns."
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