Ms Evans, from Bourne, Lincolnshire, who now fronts campaigns for the British Heart Foundation (BHF), said: “My son-in-law was going to take me to hospital but the last thing he wanted was for me to collapse in the back of the car.”
“So we waited for the ambulance, which eventually arrived the next morning.”
The grandfather of six said he had to wait in his car while an ambulance queued and “a doctor had to come and do a blood test.”
“He came back later and said it wasn’t good news, he was having a heart attack.”
The BHF has launched a new campaign called “Hearts Need More” in a bid to tackle “the worst heart care crisis in living memory”.
“The doctor who treated me was furious that I had to wait so long,” said Evans, who now suffers from heart failure.
“If it hadn’t taken so long to treat, I don’t think the heart failure would have gotten so bad,” he added.
“Right now, there’s nothing anyone can do about my long wait, but I don’t want anyone else to have to wait this long and miss out on the best treatment.”
“That’s why I’m supporting the BHF’s Hearts Need More campaign.”
Dr Charmaine Griffiths, chief executive of the BHF, said: “Glyn’s story clearly shows that we are in the midst of the worst cardiac healthcare crisis this country has ever seen. What happened to Glyn is unacceptable and was not just a one-off incident.”
“Families are torn apart”
She said: “For the first time on record, we are seeing a sustained increase in premature deaths from heart and circulatory disease, which means thousands more families will be torn apart.”
“Our new government has the power to stop this ongoing tragedy for good, but it will require everyone’s cooperation.”
The latest data for 2022 shows that on average 750 people under 75 in England are dying from cardiovascular disease each week, the highest annual figure since 2008.
New data published by the Association of Chief Ambulance Officers has revealed that in May alone, 32,000 patients were at risk of harm because they were forced to wait more than an hour in an ambulance outside hospital.
That’s up from 30,000 in April, with more than 100,000 people waiting for more than 30 minutes – the goal is for handovers to take no more than 15 minutes.
About 148 patients had to wait more than 10 hours in May, double the number in the same month last year.
A spokesman for Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Integrated Care System said: “We apologise for not being able to provide Mr Evans with a timely response in 2022.”
“It is simply unacceptable that the care we provide falls below the high standards that patients deserve and rightly expect.”