A St Albans woman is outraged after her 96-year-old mother was left lying on the floor for two hours because an ambulance failed to turn up.

Marion Foster’s elderly mother Irene Foster tripped over on Monday, October 7 and lay on her living room floor desperate for the toilet between 5.30pm and 7.30pm.

Despite her daughter calling for an ambulance straight away, one did not arrive and two hours later Ms Foster was forced to pick her mother up.

Ms Foster of Arundel Grove said: "I didn’t want to pick her up myself because I was scared to cause more damage. My mum has had falls before and they usually advise me to leave it to them to pick her up.

"This time they didn’t arrive, so I didn’t have a choice. She was on her knees struggling to get up.

"This is the NHS and if they are treating people like this then we obviously don’t have an NHS. We would get treated better abroad. "This is absolutely disgusting, how can they treat a 96-year-old woman like this?

"We should be looking after the elderly."

Ms Foster has lived with her mother her whole life and is now her full time carer.

The have lived together in the New Greens cottage for five years.

After becoming frustrated at the waiting time, Ms Foster said she called the ambulance operator three times to be advised that the service was tending to people with heart complaints.

She said: "My mother suffers with heart problems and I am sure lying on the floor in pain would not have made that any better.

"What if something had happened to her? "She was crying out to go to the toilet the whole time and there was nothing I could really do.

"It was pitch black outside and I didn’t want to leave her. "I have put my complaint in. What they have done is wrong and I want people to know about it."

Richard Dunne from East England Ambulance Services, said: "We were called at 5.30pm on Monday, October 7 and later called at 7.14pm with the caller reporting that our service was no longer needed.

"We are disappointed that Irene and Marion Foster are unhappy with our response at this incident.We have to prioritise emergency calls depending on the seriousness of each patient’s condition.

"We await to receive their complaint which will be dealt with through our PALS process."