A pensioner who says her mother's back rotted away while she was in an Ilkley nursing home has taken the case to the health Ombudsman.

Now an investigation is underway into why two care standard reports on 90-year-old Frances Hales's death failed to satisfy her grieving daughter.

Eileen Furbank, of Addingham, is still coming to terms with why nothing was done earlier by staff at Eastmoor Nursing Home to stop a gangrenous wound from getting worse on her vulnerable mother's back.

Mrs Hales died in 2002 from pneumonia and diabetes four days after being rushed from the nursing home to Airedale Hospital in Steeton where doctors discovered rotting flesh at the base of her spine.

Mrs Furbank was horrified by the discovery and complained to the then care homes standard watchdog the National Care Standards Commission (NCSC) which carried out an investigation.

The investigation found there was no documentary evidence to show staff at the home, which has now shut, had taken any measures to have either prevented the wound forming or from getting worse.

Unhappy with the investigation, Mrs Furbank asked for another to be carried out.

She said she was still not happy with it and was sickened by a blunt letter from the NCSC which said her mother had not got the care she should have received - but now it was time for her daughter to get on with her life.

She said: "I believe these paper-shufflers in their ivory towers did not do the job thoroughly enough. They should have looked into the individual carers who were responsible and taken action to make sure they didn't go on to work anywhere else.

"No matter what the Ombudsman decides, I urge people who have loved ones in nursing homes not to take everything they are told by staff as true. They have to ask questions and keep asking. They have to look out for tell-tale signs."

And she added: "When my mother was screaming they told me it was because she had dementia and I accepted that - it was too late when I found out the real reason was because her back was rotting away."

An Ombudsman spokesman confirmed the case was still under investigation but said Mrs Furbank would be kept informed.

A spokesman for the Commission for Social Care Inspection, which took over the role of the NCSC last year, said it would be fully co-operating with the Ombudsman.