A free hospital transport service has been branded “atrocious” after making a fragile pensioner wait around 10 hours for a round trip to Kent and Canterbury Hospital.

Margaret Smith, 67, even missed her appointment thanks to the blunder by multinational G4S which took on the contract for Kent and Medway just days earlier.

The pensioner, of Goodwin Close, Walmer, had a full cast on her leg from a previous fall and was preparing for a 10.30am appointment on Monday, July 4.

She was ready and waiting two hours before, according to the firm’s instructions, but daughter and full-time carer Caroline, 47, said: “From start to finish it was atrocious. At 8.50am they called to say the car will be with us shortly but I told them I needed an ambulance. They knew she needed an ambulance.

“If she could go in a car, I would have taken her myself.”

Margaret continued to wait for an ambulance and eventually made it to the hospital by noon, having missed her appointment.

Fortunately she was still seen.

Once she had finished about an hour and a half later, she was left waiting for transport to return her to Deal.

Having used the service about 10 times before, she expected to wait around an hour.

She arrived home at 6.45pm.

Caroline said: “When she came home she looked about 1,000 years older. It was dreadful.

“I thought she was going to die.

“She was crying and had needed the toilet for three hours.

“I couldn’t believe the trauma she’d been through.

“She’s only got a little body. Her back was so sore from sitting on a hard chair for six hours and it still is.

“She’s already got a bed sore.”

Margaret’s foot was crushed in a car accident 23 years ago. Because of this she regularly experiences falls.

She has one artificial hip and the other is bolted. She has a broken shoulder and treatment is ongoing.

Caroline added: “They had her on one of the benches and took the wheelchair away so my uncle, who was with her that day, couldn’t take her to the toilet.”

Margaret told her daughter she was not alone. There were about six others waiting including people having chemotherapy and a man with Parkinson’s disease.

Caroline said: “What my mum went through was unacceptable.

“The hospital staff and the drivers were all brilliant. They did everything to help, even offering my mum a foot stool and if worse came to the worse they said she could have a bed and a hot meal.

“It’s the communication that is the issue. G4S cannot afford to be having teething problems when they’re dealing with fragile old people.”

Managing director for G4S public services, John Shaw, said: “We are very sorry for the problems Mrs Smith experienced with her transport, in both getting to and from her appointment.

“It was not acceptable and we have apologised.

“We did experience some teething problems in the first few days of taking over the contract – Mrs Smith’s appointment was on the fourth day of the new service – despite all the work that was put in before launch.

“It is a large, complex service delivering more than 6,000 journeys a week and through the transfer we have brought in new technology, a fleet of new vehicles and 90 extra staff.

“We anticipated that through the initial period there would be some challenges but I want to reassure patients the service has already improved substantially and we are confident patients are starting to see the benefit.”