A grandmother and mum of six died a week after being given someone else's prescription, an inquest heard.

Doreen Burgan, 72, had been prescribed antibiotics to treat a chest infection but instead received betablockers which reduce blood pressure.

The mix-up was discovered by paramedics when they arrived to take Mrs Burgan to Bradford Royal Infirmary after her condition worsened.

Coroner Roger Whittaker ruled yesterday that the drug had not contributed to her death and recorded a verdict of death by natural causes.

But he urged pharmacies to tighten up procedures by ensuring patients' names were printed in bold type or in colour on medicines to make them stand out.

The inquest in Bradford yesterday was told that Mrs Burgan's daughter Sandra Wilkinson, 52, of Farsley, had collected the prescription from Rowlands Pharmacy in Five Lane Ends, and had been given a bag labelled with her mother's name but containing drugs for a Marilyn Pickersgill.

Mrs Burgan, a grandmother of 13 and great-grandmother of 11, took the drugs for seven days. The mistake was then spotted by paramedics who came to take her to hospital when her chest condition worsened.

She died in the early hours of the following day.

Mrs Wilkinson wept while giving evidence and said her mother was greatly missed and "the best."

Coroner Roger Whittaker said: "Reviewing all the evidence, in particular all the illnesses from which Mrs Brogan suffered, I take the view that the cause of death was due to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and it has not been contributed to in anyway by the drug atenolol.

"My findings in regards to this matter are that she died from natural causes."

The pharmacy has since changed procedures and introduced more stringent systems which were praised by Mr Whittaker.

He said: "It is clear the pharmacist had a system for ensuring that this did not happen but mistakes do occur.

"This has caused the pharmacy for which he works to substantially alter the way they give out prescriptions and the new system is as foolproof as it may be.

"The new procedures are good practice and I recommend that they are passed on to other chemists."

The inquest heard evidence from numerous consultants from Bradford Royal Infirmary including a consultant cardiologist, Mrs Burgan's GP Dr Patricia Newmark, and pharmacist Stephen Wastell.

Dr Sarah Jowett, a consultant at BRI, was in charge of the team treating Mrs Burgan when she was admitted to hospital.

She said: "There was a lot to suggest that something had tipped Mrs Burgan's condition over the edge."

Eight staff at Rowland's Pharmacy deal with between 250 and 300 prescriptions every day under the supervision of Mr Wastell.

He said there had been a thorough investigation and the staff had undergone retraining.

He added: "We have completely refitted the shop and changed our system of dispensing.

"We now bag prescriptions in front of the patient so we can do a final check."

The identity of the person giving out the medication is also marked on the label.

Mrs Burgan suffered from a number of illnesses and had a stroke in 2000 which had left her with short-term memory loss.

She lived with her husband of 52 years Daniel, 75, and was looked after by four carers and her family visited daily.

All her children and their spouses were at the inquest.

Her daughter-in-law Sandra Burgan of Rose Avenue, Swain House, said: "We have been fighting all this time and feel that we have been successful because procedures and process have been changed."

"We want to make people aware that if they are given the wrong medication they should always put it forward as a complaint so that it can be dealt with and changes made so that other's don't have to go through what we have."