A WOMAN who was told her mother had died in hospital arrived to find her asleep in a ward bed.

Hospital bosses were left red-faced when the error was discovered and blamed a mix-up with patient forms and contact numbers.

Diane Bointon got a late-night call from staff at the James Cook University Hospital, in Middlesbrough, to say her elderly mother, Mary Burke, had died.

After she telephoned the rest of the family to break the news, Mrs Bointon made her way to the hospital to say her last goodbyes.

But when she arrived with her brother, Kevin Burke, and sister, Margaret, they found Mrs Burke, 84, asleep in her hospital bed and unaware of the turmoil.

Mrs Bointon, of Easterside, Middlesbrough, said yesterday: "We are totally devastated.

"When we arrived the nurse said she had made a terrible mistake and it was another lady who had died.

"There were all sorts of emotions going through my head. I was absolutely overjoyed, but then I was furious."

Mr Burke, 55, said: "To make a mistake like this is just absolutely atrocious."

Frail Mrs Burke, a mother of five, was admitted to hospital a month ago with an irregular heartbeat but her stay was extended when she fell in the bathroom and broke her wrist.

Home care assistant Mrs Bointon said: "How could someone make that sort of mistake? On the way to the hospital we were saying to each other things like 'she'll be with dad now'.

"I don't want anyone to lose their job over this but I wouldn't want anyone else to go through what we have."

Annette Hurndall, divisional manager for medicine at South Tees Hospitals NHS Trust, said: "We would like to apologise unreservedly to Mrs Bointon and her family who were wrongly informed their mother had died.

"This was a mistake made, inadvertently, by picking up the wrong contact number. We intend to do a thorough review of record keeping for next-of-kin details."