A mum who had dialled 999 with chest pains died after the ambulance was cancelled just six minutes away from her home, an inquest heard.

The ambulance had been dispatched to Karen Ovenell’s house in Harrietsham, Kent, when it was stood down by a supervisor. A call handler then told the 43-year-old to get some sleep and ring her GP in the morning, or face a long wait at her local A&E.

Karen had already been suffering for a week from the sharp pains when it became unbearable on August 15 last year and she placed the call in the early hours of the morning. The mum-of-two died in her sleep hours later, a coroners court at Oakwood House in Maidstone heard, with a post-mortem finding she had ischemic heart disease.

Her father, Arthur Ovenell, told the hearing that Karen had been severely let down by the ambulance service, Kent Online reports. “If the call handler had done their job properly, Karen would be here,” the 68-year-old said.

Karen had placed the call shortly after midnight on August 15, with a Category 2 ambulance – for life-threatening conditions such as heart attacks or strokes – deployed within eight minutes. But the inquest heard how clinical supervisor Joshua Aicken-Bowley then placed a segmentation call at 00.37 to Karen to decide whether her case need up or downgrading.

Following a brief conversation, Mr Aicken-Bowley concluded Karen’s case was not cardiac-based, standing down the ambulance. An investigation later found that Mr Aicken-Bowley had made the decision based off his own experience rather than the primary and acute care system (PACS).

The supervisor, who no longer works for South East Coast Ambulance Service, was given an audit score of 50%, with a pass mark of 80%. The report by clinical operations manager Vikki Lewis detailed how he had made an “incorrect” decision, wrongly assuming the case “wasn’t cardiac based”.

Mr Aicken-Bowley told the inquest Karen hadn’t sounded breathless, while her sharp, shooting pains were not typical of a heart attack which usually comes with crushing pain. “I have never seen anyone present heart attack symptoms like this before,” he said. With Category 3 ambulances taking up to six hours, Karen was advised to go to A&E at Maidstone Hospital around 20 minutes from her home, but felt unable to do so as she had a young child at home asleep at the time.

Father Mr Ovenell added that he would be angry with the ambulance service “until the day he dies”. “If they had turned up that night she could have stood a chance,” he said. “I really believe that the ambulance service and NHS let her down.”

A spokesman for the service said: “Our thoughts and condolences are with Ms Ovenell’s family and friends at this difficult time. Following a thorough investigation we have taken steps to improve our training and operational processes, shared learning from the incident with our clinicians and, having attended the inquest, will continue to work with the coroner ahead of their findings.”

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