A WOMAN who lived through the Blitz and worked well into her retirement died as a result of a fall at Great Western Hospital, an inquest has found.

Joan Townsend, aged 91 of Penhill Drive, was admitted to the hospital on February 10 with confusion which doctors believed was being caused by an infection.

She was put onto a ward but the evening after she was admitted, she was left unattended to use a commode and fell, suffering a serious blow to the head.

An inquest at Wiltshire and Swindon Coroner's Court heard a report from the nurse in charge of her care on the ward who said Mrs Townsend was left alone for privacy reasons, given a buzzer and told to ring for assistance when required.

Doctors examined Mrs Townsend following the fall and found a lump on her head but they didn’t notice any signs of neurological injury.

However, the next morning she was found to be losing consciousness and a scan revealed a large bleed on the brain.

She was moved to another ward and sadly died on February 14, three days after the fall.

Concluding that her death was the result of an accident, Her Majesty’s Senior Coroner, David Ridley, said: “I have looked at this case and I have no concerns.

“Sadly, you can mitigate against risks in hospitals but you can’t completely negate them.”

Mrs Townsend was the second eldest of ten children, she was born in London in 1924 and when all her brothers and sisters were evacuated during the Blitz she stayed and lived through it.

She moved to Swindon in the 1950s and worked in retail and catering, continuing well into her retirement.

Her husband Charlie sadly died in 1996 after nearly 50 years of marriage and she lost her son to cancer in 2009.

Despite that she maintained her independence and her spirit, living in her own house and taking the bus into town to go shopping by herself.

Her daughter, Sue Lewis, described her mum as kind, generous and thoughtful – saying she would never let anyone do anything for her without showing her gratitude.

She said her mum had a huge heart and that it was made of gold.

While her daughter accepted the inquest’s conclusion of accidental death, she still has a number of concerns about the way her mother was looked after in the days before her fall.

She said: “I do think elderly people, when they’re in hospital, should have more assistance.

“From first getting mum to A& E to then getting a bed on a ward took eight hours.

“Then to leave her with a buzzer, she was confused and wouldn’t have known what to do with it.

“Also, my mum had hearing aids – one of them got lost in the hospital and the other one they gave to me so she wouldn’t have heard what they said to her anyway.

“To think that she lived to that ripe old age, lost her husband, lost her son, lived through the blitz and then died after falling in hospital.

“She deserved better than that.”