A DISABILITY issues campaigner suffered a “catastrophic brain injury” after being “neglected” by staff at Basingstoke hospital, an inquest heard.

Juliet Marlow, 48, died on August 11 following an operation in July 2018 at Basingstoke hospital.

Reporting on her inquest, the BBC said staff at the hospital in Aldermaston Road failed to notice she was going into diabetic shock.

Mrs Marlow’s blood sugar was not monitored, and she was given insulin but no sugar, Hampshire coroner Rosamund Rhodes-Kemp told the inquest.

Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (HHFT), which runs Basingstoke hospital, said it is “deeply sorry” for its mistakes.

Mrs Marlow, from Bordon, who campaigned against assisted suicide with the group Not Dead Yet UK, was admitted to hospital in June last year after suffering from the effects of low sugar levels, the BBC reported.

Following a tracheostomy, staff focused on her airway, while her “diabetes fell by the wayside” Ms Rhodes-Kemp told the inquest.

She was reportedly given no sugar for five hours, and her blood was not measured for at least four hours.

She suffered a “catastrophic brain injury” as a result of the “neglect”, which contributed to her death, the coroner said.

Police said a 25-year-old man from Basingstoke was interviewed under caution, but no charges were made on the recommendation of the Crown Prosecution Service.

The coroner said the hospital trust had made “exemplary efforts” to improve its care.

In a statement, HHFT said: “We are deeply sorry for Juliet’s death and – more than anything – would like to offer our sincere condolences to her family and friends.

"We recognise that the care we offered in this case fell short of the high standards our patients rightly expect and we thoroughly investigated what happened in order to learn lessons.

"To this end we have already taken robust measures – across a range of departments – to prevent a repeat and the coroner acknowledged this. We are sorry that this cannot change what happened for Juliet and her family.”