A mother-of-four died after a nurse at a Birmingham hospital trust gave her ten times the amount of drugs she was supposed to receive.

Arsula Samson, aged 80, widow of the former chief superintendant of the Royal Hong Kong Police Douglas Samson, had a heart attack at Good Hope Hospital, in Sutton Coldfield, after she received an overdose of deadly potassium chloride.

Birmingham coroner Aidan Cotter gave a verdict of accidental death to which neglect contributed.

Mrs Samson, of Chester Road, Streetly, who had once been an extra in Dallas, was being treated for pneumonia in the critical care unit before she died on Mother’s Day, March 14, last year. She was prescribed potassium chloride for low potassium levels.

But staff nurse Lisa Sparrow wrongly pumped her with 50ml of the drug over half an hour instead of over five hours, the inquest heard.

Instead of pressing the 10ml per hour button, the nurse admitted tapping in 100ml per hour on the drug infusion pump.

The hospital is run by Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust, which has already been investigated over a series of fatal overdose blunders in the past five years.

Staff nurse Sparrow signed out the medication from the controlled drug stock cupboard with staff nurse Susan Smith, as two people were supposed to administer and check the drug together to avoid any errors under hospital policy.

But nurse Smith left nurse Sparrow to give the drug on her own when the error happened.

The coroner said that nurse Sparrow’s gross failure resulted in the overdose and was a direct cause for the death while a second failure was that nurse Smith did not oversee the drug being given.

Nurse Sparrow told the inquest she had not expected nurse Smith to watch her give the potassium as “no-one ever did”.

Nurse Sparrow said: “I’ve had relatives say, I don’t know how you can do this job because there are so many things to do and remember. You are always on the go.”

An official Trust report read out in court stated Mrs Samson quickly deteriorated and suffered a cardiac arrest and was found to have a potassium blood reading of 7.4, much higher than the norm of 4.5, which can cause heart problems.

No error was found with the infusion pump and investigators ruled the death was due to “individual, human error”.

A Trust action plan after the death saw new infusion pumps and software that reduce the risk of error brought into all wards, medical staff retrained and warned over the dangers of potassium chloride and importance of a second nurse witnessing medication being given.

Mrs Samson’s three daughters Bonnie Hughes, Helen Williams and Louise Scragg, all from Four Oaks, said they were angry that nurses responsible for the death were still working.

“The neglect ruling is what we wanted,” said Bonnie. “The fact her death is due to human error makes it hard to stomach but we have fought for our mother.”

Louise said: “We want this to be a warning to Heart of England Trust bosses that they have got to start tightening their belts and start retraining staff to stop other families going through this hell.”

Helen added: “Nurse Sparrow killed our mother by giving the overdose but nurse Smith played a part too as she should have been there.”

A Good Hope Hospital spokeswoman said: “We remain very sorry indeed that this medication error occurred. An incident such as this is, of course, devastating for the family, but it also has a huge impact on the staff involved.”