Answers are being demanded after an elderly woman lay with a broken hip for 95 minutes waiting for an ambulance.

A 999 call was made when care home resident Hilda Allen, 92, suffered a fall at the over-90s party at the Clarke Foley Centre in Ilkley at 4.50pm on Saturday.

Because her injuries were not life-threatening, the call was referred to a clinical advisor, who cautioned against moving her, recommending instead she be kept warm and comfortable until a non-emergency ambulance arrived.

The ambulance arrived at 6.25pm, finally leaving for the hospital at 6.45pm. Ilkley and District Good Neigh-bours chairman, John Jewitt, said the charity, which organised the party, is going to complain to Yorkshire Ambulance Service.

He added: “The simple fact is, it took them an hour and 35 minutes to get here, which to a 92-year-old lady lying on the floor is, frankly, not acceptable.”

Mr Jewitt said further 999 calls were made asking where the ambulance was, as Mrs Allen was becoming increas-ingly distressed. She is now recovering at Airedale General Hospital.

Ilkley parish councillor Paul Kitching asked the local authority’s clerk to write to Yorkshire Ambulance Service. But YAS accident and emergency locality director, Paul Mudd, said the trust aimed to provide a responsive, high-quality ambulance service.

He added: “We are sorry to hear there are concerns about the response provided to the 999 call on September 29.

“We have made some initial enquiries, which suggest that, from the information provided by the caller, the patient’s condition was not deemed to be immediately life-threatening so the call was referred to a clinical advisor to ensure the patient received the most appropriate care for her needs.

“The clinical advisor made contact with the caller within five minutes of the original call to carry out a telephone assessment, and then booked a non-emergency ambulance to transfer the patient from the Clarke Foley Centre in Ilkley to Airedale General Hospital in Keighley.”

Mr Mudd urged the patient’s family to get in touch with a patient relations team if they had any concerns.