An elderly woman was left to die in hospital after doctors issued an order not to resuscitate her without her family's knowledge, it emerged yesterday.

The General Medical Council has launched an investigation after a Do Not Resuscitate order was found by Doris Jarvis' daughters on her medical file months after her death.

Her daughters, Shirley Ross, 54, and Alyson Jarvis, 51, had been given access to the 82-year-old cancer sufferer's file after lodging a complaint about the 'appalling and disgraceful' care they claimed she received at Macclesfield Hospital.

(Article continues below)

The women say it contained an incomplete DNR or Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation form, which they knew nothing about.

It had been signed by a doctor but other sections, titled "discussed with the patient/carer," "outcome of discussion" and "nurse in charge" were blank and had not been signed or dated.

Medical guidelines insist that DNR orders should only be issued following discussion with patients or their family.

Mrs Ross, of Poynton, near Stockport, Cheshire, said: "My mother had mild lung cancer and we were assured she would not die in hospital.

"The Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation order lacks every necessary signature, other than that of the issuing doctor, and there is no reference to it in my mother's medical notes.

"When we asked if resuscitation had been attempted the hospital said it had not."

Her sister, Alyson Jarvis, 51, who runs a gift shop in Poynton, added: "She went in a feisty, confident lady but became frightened and vulnerable. It is a horror story."

Mrs Jarvis, who worked as an administration assistant before she died, was admitted to Macclesfield Hospital in 2006 after being diagnosed with early onset lung cancer.

But her family were unhappy with the level of care she received in her final days, accusing staff of having a poor attitude and the hospital of being dirty and unhygienic.

She was left in dirty clothes and dirty sheets, and when relatives arrived after she died they found her body 'hanging out' of the bed, they said.

Her family also complained they were not told Mrs Jarvis, who was an active member of the local Women's Institute in Poynton, was suffering from the hospital superbug Clostridium Difficile and E.coli when she died.

They claim they only found out when the infections were listed, alongside the lung cancer, on her death certificate.

Mrs Jarvis' war veteran husband, John, 82, a retired scrap metal dealer, was so angry he lodged an official complaint against the Trust and was in the process of suing them when he too died last year.

FULL STORY: CLICK HERE