A MUM from Yate was left furious after waiting more than an hour for an ambulance when her toddler daughter burned herself.

Charlotte Carlton-Phillips, 37, was having lunch with a friend at the Ridgewood Community Centre café on April 27 when 20-month-old Sophie knocked a cup of hot coffee over herself.

Sophie was scalded from her hip to her ankle, but had to wait 40 minutes for a paramedic to arrive and then another 35 minutes for an ambulance to Southmead Hospital, despite being labelled as “high priority” as an infant.

“It was an awful wait,” said Charlotte. “Sophie has a hole in her heart, and it terrifies me that her life could be in danger because an ambulance might not arrive in time.”

After being transferred to Southmead Hospital, Sophie was treated by doctors before being allowed to go home.

She has since made a good recovery, but mum Charlotte is concerned that a lack of ambulance provision for the Yate and Sodbury area is putting “lives in danger”. 

She said: “We were horrified to learn that ambulance services for Yate and Chipping Sodbury have been drastically cut.

“Our ambulance came all the way from central Bristol and we were told by the paramedic that there is only one ambulance that serves this area.

“This is so scary, especially because Yate has a growing population.”

Cheryl Trew, café owner at the Ridgewood Community Centre, and Anne-Marie Cook, centre manager, were among the first on the scene after Sophie’s accident.

Both are trained in first aid, so were able to provide necessary treatment to the toddler before emergency services arrived.

Anne-Marie said: “The NHS staff who treated Sophie were amazing and we were all so grateful to them.

“No one can fault our nurses and doctors, the problem lies with heartless NHS cuts.” 

Charlotte and Anne-Marie have now started a petition with the goal of obtaining a better ambulance service for the Yate and Sodbury area.

Over 300 people have signed so far, but the pair are hoping for more.

Anne-Marie said: “Everyone relies on the emergency service, so this petition affects everyone.”

A spokeswoman for South West Ambulance Service told the Gazette that the service made a change to "increase ambulance availability" at Yate ambulance station on April, 3, 2017. 

She said: "These changes are about ensuring we have the right resources in the right places at the right time to meet demand. 

"In the area covering Yate, Falfield, Almondsbury and Soundwell there has been an increase in the number of hours of availability of double crewed ambulances and a reduction in the number of rapid response vehicle hours.

"This means there is overall an extra 380 hours of ambulance cover a week in South Gloucestershire – equating to approximately 32 extra staff in South Gloucestershire. 

"There has been a targeting of these extra shifts at the mid-morning until late evening period when demand is highest. 

"This means for the most serious time-critical life-threatening incidents, the Trust is predicting more than 300 patients will experience an improved response time as a result of these changes."

To view Charlotte and Anne-Marie's petition, visit their page on the 38 degrees website here.