An investigation has been launched after an ambulance carrying a patient in Cornwall stopped to pick up two hitch-hikers.

The ambulance personel were carrying a 60-year-old blood-clot patient Glenn Buscombe from his home at Polperro to Derriford Hospital in Plymouth when it stopped on the A38 to pick up the woman and man.

South Western Ambulance Service has said that the ambulance stopped near Carkeel roundabout as the man and the woman were on a "dangerous" road and that its staff did the "right thing". The ambulance was not on an "emergency" call at the time and the crew dropped the pair a mile down the road.

However the patent has registered an official complaint saying that while he would be the first person to "pick up a damsel in distress", he had been in alot of pain and his his view it was an emergency. 

Mr Buscombe told the BBC he had been shocked the ambulance had stopped and had made the complaint as "someone else could be in a more serious condition."

The couple were dropped off at a service station about a mile down the road . 

A spokesman for the ambulance trust said that the delay was only a couple of minutes, adding: "The trust has received a complaint from Mr Buscombe relating to a routine transfer from his home address to Derriford Hospital, Plymouth, in the early hours of Sunday, April 6.

"The trust takes all complaints seriously and has started an investigation to establish exactly what happened during the transfer."