A man was admitted to York District Hospital (YDH) three times without a brain haemorrhage being spotted, his family claims.

Not until the fourth occasion that 74-year-old retired lorry driver and former paratrooper Eric Wadsworth went in did a scan show bleeding on his brain - though he also had a CT scan on his second admission.

When the haemorrhage was detected he was immediately transferred to Hull Royal Infirmary, but was too ill for surgery. Though he recovered sufficiently to leave intensive care he died back in YDH on September 11.

Now his widow Rosalind, from Huntington, is demanding answers from hospital chiefs, saying she will never know if the 12 days between his initial admission on June 17 and his eventual transfer to Hull could have made a difference.

Their daughter Lynne Parker said after her father started suffering a severe headache and illness he fell and struck his head on a table. She felt hospital staff had concentrated on that injury.

"At every admission that Dad went in on we stressed to them that it wasn't the fall that caused the headache, it was the headache that caused the fall.

"He had all the classic symptoms of cerebral haemorrhage," she added.

Mrs Parker, a former nurse, has asked detailed questions about her father's treatment, including why he was not given a lumbar puncture which would have shown tell-tale blood in cerebral spinal fluid

Mrs Wadsworth said she always intended looking further into her husband's case, but was shocked to read in the Evening Press about the case of Brenda Moran, who died in May 1999 after doctors failed three times to diagnose a brain haemorrhage - twice when emergency doctors came to her home and once at YDH.

She was particularly concerned to read YDH was changing its approach so people with Mrs Moran's symptoms were more likely to be seen by a neurologist or cardiologist - but that did not happen in Mr Wadsworth's case over a year later.

"I read they were doing something about procedures - but they haven't, have they?" said Mrs Wadsworth.

"I don't want anyone else to go through what we have gone through these last 14 weeks. Money doesn't come into it at all."

Mrs Parker said: "If we don't get any joy from the NHS we are going to be in touch with the Health Service Ombudsman. We are certainly not going to let it rest until we get an answer, and an answer we can accept."

A spokesman for the York Health Trust said: "We have received a letter of complaint from Mrs Parker about the sad death of her father and the circumstances will be fully investigated as with all complaints we receive.

"It would be inappropriate to discuss the case further because of patient confidentiality."