A PENSIONER choked while being spoon-fed spaghetti in the nursing home where she was a resident, an inquest heard today.

Coroner John Sleightholme heard how 78-year-old Nora Cox, had difficulty swallowing, a condition common in people suffering from dementia as she did.

She had returned to the Harrogate Spa Nursing Home in Valley Drive after hospital treatment for a broken femur and staff had found she could not feed herself.

Two days later while being fed spaghetti in tomato sauce by care assistant Sue Lazenby, Mrs Cox had been taken ill.

Mrs Lazenby told the coroner she was using a teaspoon to feed the tinned spaghetti when Mrs Cox began to regurgitate and she pressed the alarm button.

The home's manager for 10 years Heerah Soundur said he had 34 years' nursing experience and knew people like Mrs Cox could have swallowing difficulties so her food was either soft or liquidised.

When he got to her room she appeared to have had a mini stroke. Her pulse was slow and weak and her breathing laboured. "To me it didn't look like choking at all."

Mrs Cox's GP had been called but she had died before the doctor arrived.

Mr Sleightholme, who recorded a verdict of death from natural causes, said a post mortem had established the cause was choking on foodstuffs.

Pathologist Carl Gray had added: "This was more than one spoonful going down the wrong way."