NURSING staff are to be questioned about events leading up to the death of a pensioner found on the floor at a hospital.

An inquest opening heard how Mrs Eva Kelly, 82, died in the toilets Burnley General Hospital last Friday.

Her daughter-in-law told the hearing Mrs Kelly would normally be taken to the lavatory by a nurse or another patient.

Mrs Marjorie Kelly told the hearing, at Burnley Magistrates Court: " I just wanted to know why she was on the floor.

"She wouldn't have been able to open the door or sit down."

Mrs Kelly, of Red Lees Road, Cliviger, said her Todmorden-born mother-in-law, latterly of Springfield Bank, Burnley, had earlier been found to have a cyst which was pressing on nerves so she was not able to lift her arms.

She had an operation at the Royal Preston Hospital, to relieve the pressure on 19 December and was taken back to Burnley General Hospital on 27 December.

Mrs Kelly said visitors would walk her mother-in-law, who had been unsteady on her feet for about six months, around the ward when they went to see her and she would hold on to them for support.

On the day she died, a doctor was present while she was with her mother-in-law and the late Mrs Kelly was having a laugh with him. He told her not to give up hope, progress would be slow but she would improve.

Mrs Kelly said she could not believe it when she later got a telephone call from the hospital, saying her mother-in-law had "taken a turn for the worse." She wondered what the hospital meant, as her mother-in-law was not ill.

Mrs Kelly said she thought her mother-in-law had had a heart attack or stroke, but was told she had been found on the floor in the toilets. She would normally be taken to the lavatory by a nurse or by another patient if there were no staff about.

East Lancs Coroner David Smith told the inquest a pathologist had found Mrs Kelly sustained a subdural haemorrhage due to the fall.

He said he would be asking for statements from staff on duty at the time to find out exactly how Mrs Kelly got to the lavatory.

He went on ;"If she was taken by a nurse how did it come about that she was on her own, or was she on her own? We don't know that yet."

The hearing was adjourned.