THE family of an obese smoker have received £1,500 in damages after they turned down a £65,000 offer made after medical staff failed to diagnose fatal heart disease.

Housewife Gladys Ranson, a 21-stone diabetic who smoked 20 cigarettes a day, died in the car on her way home from hospital in front of her husband and daughter, on February 9, 2000.

Newcastle County Court heard how the results of an ECG scan taken during her first admission to hospital, less than two weeks before she died, were logged as satisfactory.

During her second admission, her condition was still not diagnosed, despite her undergoing an exploratory endoscopy and having pain, sickness and sweating, clear signs of a heart attack.

Her husband, Anthony, 53, a former bus driver, and their daughter Louise, 17, launched a battle for damages against the NHS trust responsible for Darlington Memorial Hospital and Bishop Auckland General Hospital.

The County Durham and Darlington Acute Hospitals NHS Trust had offered the family £65,000 damages after it admitted medics failed in their duty to properly diagnose Mrs Ranson, of Denewood Close, Willington, Crook, County Durham.

But the family decided to take the case to trial, which was heard by Mr Recorder Martin Bethel yesterday. They were awarded £1,500 for their pain and suffering after the judge ruled her death would not have been prevented if the correct diagnosis had been made.

Judge Bethel told the family: "I have no doubt you feel a great deal of anger with the hospitals for failing to diagnose what was wrong with Mrs Ranson, and you no doubt believe, and this case would no doubt encourage you to do so, that if only doctors had done their job properly, she would still be alive now.

"But I have found on the medical evidence that is most unlikely to have been the case and, unhappily, her heart disease was so serious she would have died anyway, no matter what treatment she had."