However, had her granddaughter not been on the stairs outside the lift, she would have been stranded for yet another hour as the Acis appointed engineers took more than two and a half hours to arrive - all the way from Nottingham.


Mrs Rose Wilkinson was with her daughter, Gill Wilkinson of Nettleton, in the lift at 12.50pm on Saturday (15) when it ground to a halt.


Mrs Wilkinson said the person on the other end of the emergency line at first said they would have to wait until Monday for assistance, but then she was able to shout to her daughter, who had used the stairs, to go and get help.


"My daughter went and got my husband and he contacted the local Fire Service who came and got us out at 2.40pm," she said.


"They did a marvellous job and I have nothing but praise for them, but whatever system Acis had, it didn't work. In an emergency they should be able to get there in less than three hours. They could have got the Fire Brigade there themselves.


"Heaven knows what would have happened if my mother had been on her own. All the residents are over 80 and they are all now terrified of going into the lift.


"Their out of hours service just isn't good enough and can only get worse if they do away with the resident wardens."


Nicola Doughty, a spokeswoman for Acis, said that in the nine years since the company had been established, this type of incident had never happened before.


"As soon as we were made aware of the situation, we immediately investigated it and spoke to the family involved," she said.


"The safety of our customers is of the upmost importance to us and we have issued an apology to the family. We sub-contract our out-of-office services to Lincare, who in this instance, provided a service which fell short of our expectations.


"While they did send assistance to Dale View shortly after the call was made on Saturday, they have acknowledged that the call was not dealt with immediately and they have acknowledged that there are some training requirements for their staff.


"New procedures have already been put in place to address the concerns that were highlighted in the service."