AN ELDERLY woman’s health has been put at ‘risk’ after specialist transport failed to take her to hospital on two occasions, say her family.

Dorothy Cipriani, 87, from Brimscombe, has had to cancel two appointments at Cheltenham General Hospital to see a kidney specialist.

The first time in November the ambulance, provided by Arriva, did not have specialist equipment to transport Mrs Cipriani from her home in Toadsmoor Road.

Then on Thursday, Mrs Cipriani’s son, Anthony, booked an ambulance to collect his mother at 3pm but the service did not arrive.

“When it happened the first time we were upset and we had to re-arrange the appointment,” said Mr Cipriani, Dorothy’s son.

“Then last week we were left waiting for the bus and nobody told us what was going on.

“My mother is on 24 hour oxygen and she needs to see the doctor to check the extent of her kidney failure.

“It is getting more and more urgent.”

Mrs Cipriani has suffered from kidney failure for around three years and also has iron deficiencies.

She has now re-arranged the appointment to take place at Stroud General Hospital but will have to wait until April 20.

“My mother is very lucky because she has got a supportive family around her but there may be others who are not so fortunate,” said Mr Cipriani, a lorry driver.

“For it to have happened two times really does make you wonder how much this is costing the NHS.

“I have also had to take two days off, only for these appointments to be cancelled which has cost me around £300 in wages.”

Ed Potter, head of patient transport service for the south of England, said: “I would like to apologise to Mrs Cipriani for her recent experiences of patient transport.

“Once we were made aware of the situation we called the hospital and did everything we could to get Mrs Cipriani to her appointment but unfortunately we were not able to do so.

“We have spoken to Mrs Cipriani’s son to apologise and assure him that we have put measures in place to ensure this does not happen again.

“We have reviewed our booking process and additional procedures have been put in place immediately to reduce the risk of a similar issue occurring in future for any of the patients we care for.”