An elderly patient died after an ambulance crew lost the keys to their vehicle, an NHS report has shown.

The 87-year-old man had suffered a cardiac arrest at a Derbyshire golf course pavilion. The East Midlands Ambulance Service crew had misplaced the keys to the vehicle and could not transport him to hospital. Despite receiving "advanced life support" he later died.

The incident was mentioned in an NHS England report, according to the BBC. The report did not state if the missing keys contributed to the man’s death and provided no further details as to exactly when it occurred.

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On another occasion, a woman fell down a flight of stairs in Lincolnshire and was told by paramedics she had just bruised her back, despite reporting feeling excruciating pain. A second call to 999 and a trip to hospital revealed she had a double fracture on her spine.

On one day in October, the service also reported being unable to handle its most serious 999 calls.

These incidents were mentioned along with six others when senior members of EMAS management were called to attend an emergency risk meeting with NHS England to discuss poor response times and the safety of patients.

A follow-up meeting will be held in January to discuss performance and plans for improvement, which includes how they handle complaints and their emergency calls response times.

Chief executive Sue Noyes said EMAS had submitted a plan for improvement. She told The Mirror: “We took the risk summit very seriously.

“We are confident our programme, together with a number of other improvements to strengthen our clinical quality, will give us the right conditions to improve our organisation over time and allow it to perform efficiently and successfully in future.”