THE daughter of a man who died after suffering head injuries says her father was ‘left to die’ after it emerged that a specialist hospital bed could not be found for him.

Doctors at first wanted to operate on father-of-six Bill Brown but no intensive care beds for head injury patients were available in the North West.

Retired security guard Mr Brown, 63, suffered a bleed on the brain after falling down a flight of stairs at his home in Hollin Bridge Street, Blackburn.

After it was decided that he needed emergency neurosurgery to relieve the pressure on his brain, no suitable intensive care bed could be found.

Later more scans were viewed and it was decided that Mr Brown was not suitable after all, because as coroner Michael Singleton said, it ‘had gone too far’.

Now coroner Michael Singleton is to write to Andrew Lansley, Secretary of State for Health, to express his concern at the lack of beds.

Mr Brown’s daughter Samantha Brown, 37, said she felt like her father had been ‘let down’.

An inquest at Blackburn Coroner’s Court heard that Mr Brown was found at the bottom of his stairs at 4am on February 16.

He was immediately taken to Royal Blackburn Hospital for treatment. A scan at 4.35am failed to detect a brain bleed, but when his condition deteriorated a severe intracerebral haematoma was diagnosed at noon that day.

The hospital does not have neurosurgery facilities, but after viewing his CT scans, surgeons at the Royal Preston Hospital agreed to undertake the surgery, the hearing was told.

They advised that no head injury beds, which are differentiated by the level and skill of the nursing care, were available there, and he should then be taken to Hope Hospital in Manchester for post-operative care.

He was prepared for surgery in Preston, and an emergency ambulance was booked, the inquest heard.

But then doctors were told that no intensive care beds for head injury patients were available at Hope Hospital, nor at Walton Hospital in Liverpool.

Mr Brown’s condition then deteriorated and he became unsuitable for surgery.

Speaking at the hearing, Mr Singleton told Miss Brown: “Had it been that your father was taken to Preston, had the surgery and not survived, that’s one thing. For him not to have had surgery because there were no beds is something completely different.

“It might have made no difference to the outcome, but it seems to me that however small that chance was, your father ought to have had that chance.

“It is my intention to make a report to the Secretary of State for Health expressing my concerns, that on this occasion there were insufficient beds available.

“It might not have made a difference to Mr Brown, but it is not a situation I think is appropriate.”

Mr Singleton added: “After looking at more scans, the view was that surgery was not going to help. It was going to be futile. It had gone too far.”

He recorded a verdict of accidental death.

After the hearing Miss Brown, who was her father’s full-time carer after he was diagnosed with dementia and diabetes, said: “I’m really angry because it’s the first I’ve heard about there being no beds. I was only told that the surgery was too risky.

“I feel like my dad’s been let down, that more should have been done for him, and that they left him to die.

“They prepared him for surgery, and got everyone’s hopes up, and then called me back immediately, saying that they couldn’t do it.

“There seems to have been a lot of time wasted. From the moment the second scan revealed that he had the bleeding, it should have been all systems go on finding him a bed.

“There’s a lot of questions that need answering, and that lessons need to be learnt from what my family has gone through.

“I do not want anyone else to have to go through this.”

Ian Woolley, former head of the East Lancashire NHS Trust, said he was “shocked” to hear about the incident.

He said: “You get a lot of people with head injuries, and this seems to suggest that there isn’t suffient capacity of appropriate beds.

“Unfortunately, the bitter truth is that with current budgets, hospitals are not able to provide the care that everyone needs.”

A spokesman for NHS North West said: “Critical care is managed on a network model across the North West, with general critical care capacity as well as specialist capacity such as neurosurgical critical care, provided by specialist clinicians. Patients who require such high-level care are transferred to the nearest regional specialist unit with the capacity to receive them, by road or air, wherever in England this may be.

“The decision to transfer, or operate on, any patient is always taken by the clinician leading their care, who will make assessments based on their condition.

“I can confirm that the North West critical care network is very robust, and at no time over winter 2011/12 was the network under severe pressure for general critical care.

“We will however look closely at the Coroner's recommendations and comments, to see whether there are any lessons for us to take to the network as a result of this incident."