AN ELDERLY woman died in hospital while her frantic daughter tried desperately to find somewhere to park outside.

Pauline Davey, from Folkestone, followed an ambulance containing her mother to Ashford’s William Harvey Hospital last Friday.

As her mother Gladys Dryland was taken inside for emergency treatment Ms Davey drove fruitlessly around the packed hospital car park looking for somewhere to leave her car.

By the time she had found a space and rushed inside her mother had passed away.

The East Kent Hospital NHS Trust has expressed its sympathy to Mrs Davey but says the lack of car parking spaces at the hospital is a long running problem that it is trying to solve.

Ms Davey said: "I hope no one else ever has to go through what I went through."

Planning permission for a car park extension was recently approved. The Trust says work to create 239 new spaces is on schedule to start this spring.