A Winchester care home manager watched a pensioner choke to death while rejecting pleas to call an ambulance, an inquest heard.

Ella Davidson was found choking on a piece of grapefruit at St Cross Grange Residential Care Home, Winchester.

Staff told how manager Anne Taylor rejected repeated pleas to call the emergency services and failed to try and resuscitate her.

Veronica Westcott, who discovered the 94-year-old, said she watched as the pensioner took her final breaths.

The carer, giving evidence at Winchester Coroner’s Court said she felt unqualified to help the pensioner, so raised the alarm with her manager.

She said: “She [Mrs Taylor] checked her wrists for a pulse.

“Somebody came in and said: ‘Shall we an ambulance?’ She said: ‘No, she’ll be dead by the time they arrive.”

“She left the room and I was left there to watch her die.

“She [Mrs Davidson] should not have been there, she should have been in hospital and there was nothing I could do to save her.”

Deputy manager Jim Russell and care assistant Toby Edwards backed up her story, saying Mrs Taylor rejected pleas for the emergency services to be called.

Mrs Westcott said the pensioner – who suffered from Parkinson’s Disease – was still gasping for breath minutes later when staff moved her from her chair to her bed.

She added: “Mrs Taylor said ‘Would you like to lay out Ella Davidson, take Toby [Edwards] with you, it will be good experience for him’.

“Toby was with me as she took her final breath.”

Mrs Taylor, a former intensive car nurse, told police Mrs Davidson’s breathing was “purposeless”. Asked why she did not attempt resuscitation or call an ambulance, said: “I felt she had died.”

Detectives investigated the incident – which happened around 8.30am on Friday, June 19 last year – but a spokesman confirmed there was insufficient evidence to prosecute Mrs Taylor. After an internal investigation Greensleeves Homes Trust (GHT), which runs the home, sacked her.

Expert witness Dr David Sutton, asked if resuscitation would have saved the pensioner, said: “I think it’s possible but unlikely.

“From the pathologist’s report the obstruction was completely across the trachea (airway).

“But from what I have heard and read the obstruction was partial to start with and it is possible some air would have got past to the lungs. It’s possible it would have prolonged Ella Davidson’s life, long enough for the emergency services to arrive.”

Grahame Short, coroner for central Hampshire, recording a verdict of accidental death, said it was a matter of conjecture as to whether resuscitation would have saved her.

He added: “What we can say however is that the failure to summon help and to take her to hospital meant her death was inevitable.”

A spokesman for GHT said: “We deeply regret the distressing circumstances of Mrs Davidson’s death and offer our deepest condolences to her family.

“Following the conclusion of police inquiries and the decision that no one was to be charged with an offence, we carried out our own internal investigation, including a disciplinary inquiry, and Mrs Taylor was dismissed.

“We have reminded senior staff at all our homes that it is vital to call an ambulance in the case of sudden or unexpected collapse of a resident. “Our investigation found that our policy on this matter was both understood and being followed in all our homes, so that this incident was a single aberration.

“We are confident that the requirement to call an ambulance in a case such as this is instinctive with all our managers and senior staff.”