With an ongoing crisis in accident and emergency departments across the UK, the London Ambulance Service has been accused of failing to care for a 100-year-old woman before her death, despite serious concerns for her health.

Over the last few weeks, A&E staff have struggled with an unprecedented spike in admissions, with ambulances turned away, extra doctors drafted in and staff working overtime.

On January 4, 76-year-old Alan Rowe called 999 after watching the health of his elderly mother, Elsie, deteriorate.

She had stopped eating and could no longer lift her own weight.

However, he says he was told by the attending ambulance crew that his mother was not sick enough to be admitted to Whipps Cross.

Over the next few days, Mrs Rowe was fed on baby food as her condition worsened.

Desperate for help, Mr Rowe contacted social services, who called the second ambulance.

She was taken to hospital on January 8, but died of pneumonia on January 12.

Her son believes she would still be alive if she had been admitted when he first raised the alarm.

Mr Rowe, who lived with his mother in St John’s Road, Walthamstow, said: “She was terrified of going into hospital, so she told them she felt okay, but we knew otherwise.

“I asked them to take her. She had been going downhill rapidly.”

“They said there and then she wasn’t sick enough to be taken to hospital.

“I am feeling very angry and very bitter.

“I believe absolutely she would have survived if she had been taken to the hospital the first time.”

A senior member of staff at De Vere care in Walthamstow, who asked not to be named, told the Guardian she visited Mrs Rowe before the second ambulance arrived and agreed she should already have been in hospital.

The London Ambulance Service has been asked to comment.