AN Addingham woman is demanding answers a year after her mother was rushed to hospital from an Ilkley nursing home suffering from gangrene.

Eileen Furbank, 71, was stunned when a doctor found rotting flesh on the back of her 90-year-old mother, Frances Hales, last August.

Mrs Hales, who had been staying at Eastmoor Nursing Home in Ben Rhydding Road, was taken to Airedale General Hospital but died four days later.

Her daughter is still haunted by the memory of her mother repeatedly crying 'help' during the weeks leading up to her death - only to be told by the nursing home staff that it was 'only dementia'.

An initial investigation into the tragedy by the National Care Standards Commission (NCSC) concluded that Eastmoor employees had not done everything they could for Mrs Hales.

But Mrs Furbank, of Aynholme Close, Addingham, is still determined to find out why her mother did not received medical assistance sooner - and has managed to get a second inquiry started.

She said: "I'm still angry and I'm still grieving. I cry every day about my mother and I just want justice for her.

"From June last year I could see things were wrong with her. She was continually just saying to me 'help, help', but she couldn't tell me what was wrong.

"So I asked the staff and I was told 'they all do that because of dementia', which I just accepted because they were carers.

"Then, on the Sunday before she went to hospital, I went up with a friend to visit and one of the girls at the home said 'we've found a hole in your mum's back and it's gone black' - that was how I was told.

"This girl was quite young and I presumed at first she was only talking about a discoloration, but it played on my mind after I went home that night and the next morning I asked for a doctor to go and examine my mum."

The examination revealed a large, gangrenous wound on Mrs Hales' back and the doctor immediately decided to have her admitted to hospital.

Mrs Furbank said: "Within two and a half hours of my initial call to the doctor I had received a call from the hospital asking if I wanted my mother to be resuscitated, she was that badly ill.

"How could they have not noticed gangrene? The smell alone, when they were washing or changing her, must have been obvious."

Four days later Mrs Hales was dead, and her daughter, furious that her illness had gone unnoticed, had lodged an official complaint.

Unhappy at the thoroughness of the first NCSC investigation, Mrs Furbank contacted Ilkley MP Ann Cryer who argued her case to Health Minister Jacqui Smith.

Miss Smith then ordered the commission to launch a second inquiry to specifically look at why Mrs Hales had not received medical treatment any earlier.

Eastmoor Nursing Home has since closed due, according to its owners, Southport-based Crowther Residential Care Ltd, to financial pressures.

A director with Crowther, David Bilington (CRRCT), said: "As far as I'm concerned at no stage was there any question of anyone receiving less than the required standards of care. We will, however, co-operate fully with any inquiry."

Former legal advocate Mrs Furbank, however, says she intends to sue the company.

Mrs Cryer said: "It is frightening to think that we entrust our elderly relatives with carers only to discover they may not have received the attention they need and deserve.

"We need to ensure that people who are in nursing homes are properly cared for and establish the full facts of what happened to Mrs Hales."

Mrs Hales' wound is believed to have been a bed sore, usually caused by lying in the same position for lengthy periods, which became gangrenous due to lack of attention. She had been a diabetic for several years, a condition which would have exacerbated the wound's deterioration.

Gangrene cuts the blood supply off to affected areas, causing parts of the body to rot, and without treatment can spread quickly and cause extreme pain.

A spokesman for the NCSC would only confirm it was carrying out an investigation into 'the care of a resident while at Eastmoor Care Home'.

"All complaints investigations are confidential," he said, "but a full report of the findings will be made to the complainant."

Mrs Furbank, meanwhile, is determined to press ahead until she gets some satisfactory answers.

She said: "A lot of people don't complain after things like this. Because of all the turmoil and grief, they just let it go.

"But I'm a very strong person and I won't ever give up until I get some results. I know this won't bring my mum back, but it might make other nursing homes think about how they are treating the poor souls who are in their care."