The parents of a woman who died in hospital after staff failed to monitor her are to sue the NHS trust they claim is responsible.

Kathleen Doherty, 29, was admitted to Royal Preston Hospital with suspected gallstones and had them removed.

However, her condition was not checked in the hours after the operation because doctors said they were too busy and a serious internal bleed was not detected.

Despite Ms Doherty’s pleas for help and water, she was ignored and she died five hours later from blood loss.

A coroner has now ruled that the hospital’s doctors made "serious and repeated failures", the Daily Mail reports.

Ms Doherty’s brother Michael said: "We are taking legal action to ensure that no other family has to endure the pain we have gone through. If they had followed the correct procedure and given the level of care anyone would have expected, Kathleen would still be alive today."

A spokesperson for Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which provides services to 370,000 local people from Chorley and South Ribble Hospital and Royal Preston Hospital, expressed condolences to the family and regret over Ms Doherty’s death.