GREAT Western Ambulance Service has been criticised after it sent an ambulance 34 miles from Bristol to take an elderly man 200 yards from his home in Warminster to the local hospital.

Harry Stevens, 94, of Regal Court in Weymouth Street was advised on October 9 to go into hospital for respite care but there were no community beds available at the time at hospitals in Warminster, Chippenham or Marlborough.

Eight days later, Mr Stevens’ daughter Pip Ridout, a Warminster town and district councillor, received a call to say there was a bed available and an ambulance would pick him up from home.

Mrs Ridout, of Savernake Close, Warminster, said: “At 10.30am an ambulance and two paramedics arrived to take him the 200 yards to Warminster hospital – it had been sent from Southmead Hospital in north west Bristol.

“What an incredible waste of time and resources – what has happened to common sense?

“Even if I hadn’t been available a taxi would have cost less than £5. No wonder Great Western Ambulance Service (GWAS) has such a poor evaluation.”

GWAS said this week the ambulance was the next available one and was on its way back from the Bristol hospital, rather then having been dispatched from there.

Mrs Ridout said her father was well enough to get a taxi to the hospital in The Close when he was first told he would need to receive respite care.

Mrs Ridout said: “The crew that came said it wasn’t the first time that this had happened.

“I would have taken him if I knew, he only needed someone to go with him.

“I didn’t know what to say, after my jaw got picked up off the floor I had a little rant like I do and said that I could have taken him myself. It’s absolutely daft.”

John Oliver, a spokesman for GWAS, said: “It was a Wiltshire-based vehicle; it would have only have been there if it was taking someone from Wiltshire to Bristol.

“It is an urgent care support vehicle and it was having to go back to Wiltshire anyway.”

In response Mr Oliver said:“We would only have sent an ambulance if someone would have called us or arranged it and we would have looked at the resources available.”

On Wednesday Mr Stevens died of conditions related to old age after being admitted to Warminster Hospital.