Police took more than five hours to arrive at the home of a seriously ill man after receiving a call of concern about his welfare, a new report has found.

An Edinburgh City Council neighbourhood support officer contacted police on April 19 to raise concerns that the 72-year-old was not answering the door and had not been seen for a few days.

Officers were sent to his Edinburgh home within 35 minutes but were diverted to another urgent incident.

It was only later that day that control room operators realised no one had been to assist the man.

When alternative officers arrived at the man's home, they found he was seriously ill and required hospital treatment.

The case was referred to the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner (PIRC), which has published its findings.

Commissioner Kate Frame found the "considerable delay" to the visit was caused by a "lack of ownership" of the initial call.

The call was correctly prioritised as a grade two incident, which requires a response within 15 minutes but officers were not dispatched for 35 minutes.

The man, who cannot be named, has since improved and is expected to make a full recovery.

Ms Frame said: "Fortunately, in this case the medical opinion suggests that the delay in the police attending is unlikely to have had a significant impact on the seriousness of the man's illness.

"Police Scotland has since carried out a review of the circumstances and put new safeguards in place for dealing with this type of incident, which requires supervisors to more closely monitor the actions of staff."

Chief Superintendent Kenny MacDonald, divisional commander for Edinburgh, said: "I would like to thank the Pirc for conducting this investigation and for recognising the immediate improvements to our processes that were made as a result of this incident.

"On a daily basis we receive and respond to numerous calls relating to concerns for people and every possible effort is made to attend to these within the appropriate time frame.

"If for any reason we are unable to meet the high standards of policing we set for ourselves, and which the public rightly expect, then we will take all relevant steps to address these issues.

"When the original call of concern for the man was received, officers were dispatched within 35 minutes, but needed to be diverted to deal with a call relating to a concern for a female where there was an immediate threat to life.

"Our new level of supervision and continued review of our response processes aims to ensure all calls to police are given appropriate ownership and dealt with accordingly."

The incident took place just six months after a damning HM Inspectorate of Constabulary report outlined problems with police call-handling.

HM Inspector Derek Penman said there were weaknesses in Police Scotland's roll-out of its new national call-handling system.

The inspection, the results of which were published in November last year, highlighted examples of call handlers being under pressure to end calls quickly.

It also found that the grading of calls were dependent on resources available.