COMMUNICATION blunders led to a cyclist dying on the side of the road after an ambulance took about an hour to turn up.

Patrick Royle, 31, passed out in Hollow Way, Cowley, Oxford, after suffering heatstroke during a charity bike ride in July 2006.

But a breakdown in communication meant no one knew a British Red Cross crew was just 60 seconds from the scene.

An inquest at Oxford Coroners' Court yesterday heard a series of communication failures between the event organisers, South Central Ambulance Service (SCAS) and the British Red Cross led to Mr Royle's death.

Passers-by battled to save Mr Royle, but an NHS ambulance was not dispatched because a control room call handler failed to class the incident as serious and all crews were busy, the inquest heard.

During the hour-long wait for a free crew, two British Red Cross ambulances were in the area and had earlier offered to assist SCAS with injured cyclists.

But SCAS failed to alert them because a control room call handler did not to pass on this message the rest of the staff, the hearing heard.

Outside court father Trevor Royle said: "This was a shambolic sequence of events that lead unnecessarily to a young man's death.

"The British Red Cross was slipshod in giving information to the ambulance service and the ambulance service showed a great deal of neglect dealing with a member of the public."

Mr Royle's mother Hannah, a retired GP, said: "The fact there were no ambulances available when he collapsed is unbelievable."

Coroner Richard Whittington said: "At about 4.30pm (time of collapse) there were two British Red Cross ambulances somewhere in the vicinity of Oxford city boundaries.

"At one stage we know one was within 60 seconds.

"There is a very good chance if he had been removed from the scene and brought to hospital Mr Royle would have survived."

The inquest heard the British Red Cross only told SCAS it had three crews in the area to assist with the bike ride earlier in the day, but the call was not logged.

Mr Royle, of Raynes Park in London, was among 700 cyclists near the end of a 60-mile charity ride from Richmond Park to Oxford on July 2, 2006.

A day earlier, Oxfordshire Ambulance Service merged with Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and Hampshire to form South Central Ambulance Service, but managers maintained this did not contribute to Mr Royle's death.

A passer-by dialled 999 at 4.26pm, but ambulance staff wrongly classed it as a non-emergency, Mr Whittington was told.

Mr Royle was pronounced dead by paramedics about an hour after that call. It happened just minutes after a British Red Cross vehicle was flagged down and the two-man ambulance arrived.

Red Cross services manager Donna Taylor said: "It was a bit of lack of communication. "Had the ambulance service made contact the situation may have been different."

Robert Ive, South Central Ambulance Service risk manager, said: "The information wasn't shared within the control room. We didn't even know about the event."

Mr Whittington delivered a narrative verdict of misadventure, aggravated by the neglect "to provide a prompt ambulance response".