A coroner will write to East Kent’s beleaguered hospitals trust after hearing of a shortage of intensive care beds.

Ashford’s William Harvey Hospital has numbers far below the national average despite having the third busiest intensive therapy unit in four counties.

One 89-year-old woman didn’t get so much as an ITU bed after major hernia surgery.

An inquest into her death also heard that a consultant anaesthetist assigned to her did not have time to see her before surgery.

Now coroner Rachel Redman will write to tell of her concerns both to the Department of Health and East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust, which is now in special measures after a catalogue of other failures.

Mrs Redman, Central and South East Kent Coroner, was told of the problems by two consultant anaesthetists at the inquest hearing.

She said: “Both have been extremely frank and honest. It is incumbent upon me to support these two witnesses in requesting better resources.”

New problems were revealed during the inquest of Betty Smith, 89, of Woodchurch, who died three days after surgery.

The inquest heard that she was not placed in an ITU bed after surgery but placed instead in a recovery area and then to a ward.

ITU, however, would not have guaranteed survival.

Consultant anaesthetist Debkumar Pandit told the hearing at Folkestone Magistrates Court that the Harvey had 11 beds in ITU when it admits 800 patients a year.

It was reduced to nine about two months ago after two were no longer made available because of a nursing shortage.

The inquest heard that the unit was one of the busiest in Kent, Surrey and East and West Sussex apart from Brighton and Guildford.

Dr Pandit added that the UK average was 6.4 beds per 100,000 patients but in the East Kent region it was only 4.5 per 100,000.

Dr Marcus Fletcher, also consultant anaesthetist at the hospital, said he had not even been given time to see Ms Smith pre-operatively and had to make judgements on her fitness for surgery via her medical records.

He said: “I never saw the patient. In an ideal world I would have seen her pre-operatively.

“I have had to fight here to get two hours a week back devoted to seeing patients. I see patients in my own time if I have to.

“This is a concern I have raised with the hospital. This lady was not failed by individuals but by systemic failings.”

But he conceded that management now recognised problems and were working to solve them.