HEALTH bosses are launching a review following an incident at the Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester where a patient was forced to wait nearly half an hour for an ambulance.

A visitor to the Shawford ward, which treats patients with mental health problems, was injured in a fall last Thursday.

Despite the ward's proximity to the accident and emergency department an ambulance was called, leading to a wait of nearly 30 minutes.

Shawford ward is run by West Hampshire NHS Trust and provides specialist services for elderly patients with mental health problems.

Martin Barkley, chief executive, said: "I am very sorry to report that there was an accident on Thursday, which involved a visitor to the ward.

"Our staff immediately assessed the patient's injury and considered it required specialist assessment and treatment in A&E. The staff of the A&E department requested that a qualified ambulance crew were called to attend to ensure the patient was conveyed safely, so staff called Hampshire Ambulance Service.

"A nurse from West Hampshire NHS Trust stayed with the patient.

"The staff did everything they could to ensure that this patient was made as comfortable as possible. While it was not ideal that it took so long for the injured visitor to get to A&E, the fact is that the ambulance service prioritise calls according to clinical need. As such the call was not responded to as a 999 because the injured visitor was in safe hands.

"The trusts will be reviewing the circumstances surrounding this incident to ensure that we learn all we can to improve things for the future."

An ambulance spokesman said the service got a call at 3.58pm but because medical staff were already there it was not treated as a 999. An ambulance arrived at 4.22pm, within the 30-minute target time, and the patient, who has not been named, was taken to casualty by 4.35pm.