An elderly woman was left in agony with a broken leg in the Rivergate Shopping Centre after Paramedics took half-an-hour to arrive.

Betty Maxwell was out shopping with her daughter Fiona Wotherspoon on November 28 when she slipped and fell outside of Boots in the Mall.

Fiona, 46, and sister Karon Maxwell, 46, say their 69-year-old mum was left in agonising pain whist she waited for an ambulance to arrive and say if it wasn’t for the kindness of passers-by coming to her aid, the situation would have been worse.

Karon said: “Mum sat there on that cold tiled floor waiting for the ambulance to arrive. She was in so much pain and my sister was really upset and in shock.

“Thankfully other shoppers were passing by and came to mum’s aid. One woman who was with her daughter propped mum’s head up and held her hand while Fiona called the ambulance and other people came over to see if she was ok too. That really kept her going and kept her spirits up even though she was in terrible pain.

“The staff at the Rivergate were great too and couldn’t have been more helpful.”

Karon says her mum was eventually taken to Crosshouse Hospital where she was kept in high dependency as the break to her leg was so severe.

But Karon says the family are “angry” that Betty was left for so long without pain relief of medical help.

She said: “We are really angry with how long it took the paramedics to arrive. Then when they did come they had left the scoop they needed to lift her in the ambulance outside so that meant she sat even longer until they went back and got it. A woman of mum’s age should not be sitting on a shopping centre floor with a broken leg, which turned out to be her midshaft femer so it was a very bad break.

“It was uncomfortable, painful and embarrassing with hundreds of people walking passed her. It should never have taken that long.”

A spokesman for the Scottish Ambulance Service said: “We would like to apologise to this patient and will be contacting them directly. We received an emergency call at 1257 hours on November 28 and arrived on scene within 30 minutes. Unfortunately, we were experiencing high levels of demand at the time.

“We prioritise the sickest, most seriously ill patients and as a result we have almost doubled survival rates for cardiac arrest patients since 2013.

“We are in the process of recruiting an additional 1,000 paramedics which will reduce delays for non immediately life threatening patients.”