They coded her cat 3 which in theory would have been a blue light response, in my area over the last week looking at the numbers now the average response time for this category was 1hr 54mins, with 90% reached in just a little over 4hrs. For comparison cat 1 (cardiac arrests) average response was 8mins with 90% in under 14mins, and cat 2 (stroke/heart attack/sepsis&meningitis) 33min average, with 90% in 1hr 14. If the service was on escalation and not sending on cat3s it's likely reached a time when the response times are in that bad final outlying 10% zone where you're looking at 4-24hour estimated response times.
When demand is high and resources run out the goalposts change as was the case during the call in question i.e. cat3 which is normally blue light response, becomes a no send must make own way or goto GP. This is just the consequence of being overwhelmed and they have to triage. It's often more appropriate/you'll arrive at A&E quicker in an emergency if you take a taxi/family give you a lift so if it's a life threatening emergency I honestly would say think hard about whether you can afford to wait for an ambulance, if the illness/injury means you are unable to make own way than this is what the ambulance service is for.
It would certainly be interesting to have listened to the call. The people who have listened to the call say it was appropriately managed for the answers given at the call, there are several breathing related questions and call takers are not allowed to question the veracity of the caller - so ultimately in the call it's very unlikely that anyone said 'she can't breath'.
People can deteriorate really very quickly and unexpectedly. It's quite possible that at 0520 she had symptoms that wouldn't have looked out of place in a GP surgery waiting room, that her symptoms were accurately described at the time the call was made, but really sadly suddenly worsened. This can happen to anyone unfortunately and that's why worsening advice is critical to give/understand and act on. For instance I see loads of kids with worried parents who present at the very first instance of fever to be 'checked out', unfortunately in the very first onset meningitis will present in similar fashion to standard viral infection, so the checkup itself is essentially pointless (at the very early stages) but the information pack I'll send with the parents for them to read about deteriorating signs/sepsis/meningitis could make all the difference, if they read it! (I talk through the salient points of course but people in those settings often can't be relied on to take on board more than 3 pieces of info so you have to pick carefully).
Very sad to hear about a potentially avoidable death. If the services weren't overwhelmed she would have likely had an ambulance response by 6am. I don't see funding increasing in a meaningful way to keep up with demand, I can't imagine we're actually going to do anything that stops people calling who were able to make own way/get calls to reduce so as time goes on the ambulance service will be saying no to more and more people when they ask for an ambulance because the fact is there aren't any to send at that time so they're afforded the option to say no.