"Gave up waiting for ambulance after head injury"

I tripped over at home and gave my head a thoroughly good bang on the outer corner of a wall.  The result was a nasty cut on top of my head requiring five stitches and a comprehensive examination at the Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton.  Immediately after the accident there was considerable blood loss and I felt faint and lay on the floor.  My wife and I were not sure how badly injured I was.  The drive into the hospital is 15 ~ 20 minutes and it was thought prudent to call an ambulance.

The response was that an ambulance was on its way and could somebody stand in the road to guide the ambulance into the house.  Some while later (30 minutes +) my wife had had enough of standing by road and it was decided to ring the ambulance again, in order ascertain what was happening.  No ambulance had been dispatched and no idea of when this might occur was given.

My wife drove me into the hospital where I received rapid and thorough attention by all of the staff at A&E ~ a gold star service.

I do not understand transferring from a promise to dispatch of an ambulance NOW to nothing happening, without communicating the problems to the waiting patient/family, and discussing other options for getting the patient to hospital.  This issue is just like the experience we endured with the weekend 111 service in Somerset last year.  We waited 18 hours for a response to be told that we should go and see our GP next day.  In this particular case my wife ended up with sepsis and was really rather ill.

There does not seem to be a problem with NHS itself, but rather with the communication or customer care service provided by the peripheral service units.  Nil points!