A GRIEVING woman has hit out at a personal alarm service after her aunt was left to die alone while waiting for an ambulance.

Sarah Coles’ aunt Maureen Clark, 82, pressed a pendant around her neck to alert Newham TeleCare after falling and injuring herself at home.

Mrs Clark of Fleeming Road, Walthamstow, told the operator she was bleeding and needed an ambulance at 4.30pm on Sunday, February 26.

But it wasn’t until three hours later when her carer arrived to find her unresponsive that an ambulance arrived after she ordered one.

Ms Coles, 49, of Louisa Oakes Close, Chingford, said she can’t understand why the ambulance ordered by Newham TelCare wasn’t logged as an emergency as her aunt was bleeding.

The single mother-of-one said: “I am disgusted because she could have been lying there on her own for two hours in need of help. Nobody came for her. She was just left there.

“It was distressing and the police came and we were told it was a crime scene. If she had just passed away peacefully it wouldn’t be so distressing but it is the way it happened.

“When my sister’s husband called to tell me I just couldn’t believe it. It was just shocking.

“I am really sad about it. The ambulance was over three hours late so what happened to it?”

The ambulance ordered by the service arrived shortly after the one ordered by Mrs Clark’s carer turned up at 7.45pm.

A post mortem revealed Mrs Clark, a widow, had blocked arteries.

She had been a customer of Newham TeleCare, which is run by Newham Council, for the past few years. The service, which costs £3 per week, enables users to speak directly to an operator if they are unable to get to a phone.

Ms Coles, whose aunt’s body was found slumped on a settee in her living, said an ambulance had always arrived promptly when she had fallen before.

She said: “She did have quite a few falls and would press the pendant and the ambulance would always come.

“On the day she died she fell at 8.30am and an ambulance came. She was ok and they gave her the all-clear.

“But when she fell in the afternoon her legs got cut. I don’t know how that could have happened, maybe it was on her Zimmer frame or on the table, but she was bleeding and needed help.”

A spokesman for Newham Council said they are “reviewing procedures” to see if they could have handled things differently in Mrs Clark’s case.

He said: “We are sorry for Ms Cole’s loss and have offered our condolences to her and her family.

“We have begun a thorough investigation, including liaising with Waltham Forest Council and the London Ambulance Service who were contacted on two separate occasions.

“Once we have all the information we will respond fully to Ms Cole and her family.”