A WOMAN was left waiting in the snow for an ambulance that took more than two hours to reach her.

Shoppers and staff at nearby Prospect charity shop brought blankets and water, after the elderly woman fell on the pavement on Victoria Road at around 11am on Tuesday morning.

Police officers stopped to help the woman just after midday – around an hour after the ambulance was first called.

Paramedics had arrived before 2pm.

A spokesman for South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SWASFT) apologised that the ambulance service was unable to reach the woman “more quickly”.

“Managing the demand on the ambulance service across the south west can be very challenging and we must prioritise our responses and our ambulance resources according to clinical need, so that our most poorly patients receive the most urgent response – such as those in cardiac arrest or having a stroke,” he said.

“Sometimes this means that less poorly patients do not get the response that we would wish.

“To help us manage this demand, we would ask people to only call 999 in an emergency and to use other more appropriate services for less urgent conditions.”