A DOCTOR who cared too much for her patients took her own life while suffering from depression, an inquest was told.

Dr Dawn Harris, 38, was described as a "perfectionist" working in an "imperfect" system.

And the Bury inquest heard on one occasion she was verbally abused by a patient and left "visibly upset."

Her senior partner at Bolton's Lever Chambers, Dr Christopher Wakefield, said: "It was absolutely the last straw."

Dr Harris was found hanging by a dressing gown cord from a bannister at her home in Aviemore Close, in Holcombe Brook, by her husband, Michael Churchill, on August 2 last year.

The inquest heard she had told her doctor two years earlier that the stress of her job had driven her to overdose on sleeping pills, which she was surprised to have survived.

Mr Churchill said she took the pills after becoming concerned about blood test results for a patients, which colleagues had overlooked while she was away on holiday.

Dr Wakefield described Dr Harris as "dedicated to her work and liked by the staff and patients."

Following the attempted overdose, Dr Harris was prescribed anti-depressants. She tried to wean herself off the medication and the

inquest heard she complained of "feeling weird" if she missed one day of the course.

The inquest heard that she insisted to her husband she was not going to do anything stupid again after the overdose.

After the verbal abuse from a patient, Dr Wakefield said his colleague admitted she "was anxious and did not enjoy coming to work in the morning."

On the day of her death, Dr Harris visited her family in Manchester and seemed very happy.

Her mother, Elizabeth Harris, said: "When we saw her, she seemed more relaxed than we had seen her for a while.

"She never displayed a depressive personality. She was full of life - a joy."

On returning home, she then went to watch her husband play cricket and after the match the couple went home.

Her husband later went for a drink with team-mates, returning at 11.30pm, and found Dr Harris hanging from the bannister of the stairway.

Her sister, Diana Harris, said: "Dawn was very busy caring for everybody else. I do not think she saved enough of herself for herself.

"I do not believe that she planned to kill herself but she would have known that if she hanged herself it would be over very quickly."

Coroner Simon Nelson returned a verdict of a "traumatic death following a deliberate act of self-harm while suffering from a depressive illness."

He added: "If certain circumstances had not prevailed, I do not think she would have self-harmed in the way that she did."

He said there should be tighter regulations surrounding anti-depressants as, even though Dr Harris had shown no obvious signs of side effects, she had commented that not having the medication had an adverse effect on her.