AN AMBULANCE trust has apologised after a Basingstoke woman spent 16 hours trying to locate her dead father.

Lynne Compton has spoken of the agony of not knowing what had happened to her father Leslie Compton, after he was taken to Basingstoke hospital by an ambulance from the care home where he lived in Bramley.

An ambulance was called to take Mr Compton to the hospital on August 24 at 6.45pm, because he was suffering from pneumonia.

But when his daughter telephoned the hospital to ask which ward he had been admitted to, the hospital had no record of his admittance.

Miss Compton, from Black Dam, spent the next 16 hours frantically trying to find out what had happened to her 82-year-old father.

It was not until midday on August 25 that she received a voice message asking her to telephone North East Hampshire coroners office. She was then informed that her father had died in the ambulance.

Miss Compton said: “I felt like I had been tracking a missing parcel not a person.”

Miss Compton added: “Me and my family have been unable to grieve as we need to know what happened.”

She said: “We are concerned that he didn’t get the dignity he deserved. I’m angry and upset and haven’t been able to grieve. My mum is so upset.”

Miss Compton said she wants to prevent this happening to another family, adding: “Was he just dumped and forgotten about?

There were 16 hours I was trying to track him. It was horrendous trying to find out. The operator said ‘I’m very sorry I don’t know what to tell you’. She was just as upset as I was.

“I had to go to my mum and she was expecting me to tell her that dad had been admitted to a particular ward but instead I didn’t know where he was. It was heartbreaking. I just need answers.”

South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SCAS) has apologised and said it will be updating its ‘resuscitation policy’ as a result of the incident.

The trust confirmed that it collected Mr Compton from the care home but his condition “deteriorated rapidly during the journey and he died before arriving at hospital.”

Mark Ainsworth-Smith, consultant pre-hospital care practitioner for SCAS, said: “I would like to offer my condolences to Miss Compton on the death of her father and add my apologies for the distress caused by the delay of notifying her of Mr Compton’s death. The death of any loved one is an extremely traumatic event to experience and regrettably we did not handle the communication with Mr Compton’s family to our usual high standards.

“In the extremely rare cases like Mr Compton’s where a patient dies en route to hospital or other care settings, it is essential that next of kin are informed. Unfortunately this did not happen in this case and this led to unnecessary additional distress for Mr Compton’s family.

“Having personally led the investigation into the circumstances of Mr Compton’s case, we are in the process of updating our resuscitation policy and have created written guidance for all of our frontline crews to remind them of the procedures they need to follow should any patient with a ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ notice in place pass away en-route to hospital.

“I would welcome the opportunity of meeting Miss Compton to apologise in person and to discuss any further concerns she has about the communication regarding her father’s death. SCAS is keen to learn from rare incidents such as these so that lessons can be learnt in the hope that they will never be repeated.”