AN ELDERLY Bolton woman died from septicaemia after efforts to treat a bed sore failed.

Rhoda Topp, aged 81, was too frail to undergo surgery, a Bolton inquest was told.

Mrs Topp lived at the Old Vicarage residential home on Ivy Bank Road, Astley Bridge, for the last four years of her life.

Her daughter, Christine Sneddon, said the former office worker's condition had deteriorated in the last 12 months of her life.

Assistant deputy coroner, Alan Walsh, heard how staff at the home had discovered a pressure sore on the pensioner's buttocks after she had a bath.

Visits

But, despite regular visits from her GP and district nurses, the wound did not heal.

Ten days before her death in May, Mrs Topp was admitted to the Royal Bolton Hospital but doctors there believed she was too frail to undergo surgery to remove dead tissue and continued treating her with the use of dressings.

But her condition deteriorated, she developed septicaemia and died.

Consultant physician Dr Jacqueline Bene explained that pressure sores are extremely difficult to treat in elderly people and death can occur despite the best efforts of medical staff to treat them.

Mr Walsh recorded a verdict of death by natural causes.