Stripped of her dignity, a recently deceased great-great-grandma lay surrounded by her distraught family for 11 hours while rigor mortis set in – because no doctor had arrived to declare her dead.

Lilian Doy was 93 when she died on January 3 at Park View Nursing Home, Dagenham. She leaves behind two children, seven grandchildren, nine great-grandchildren and three great-great-grandchildren.

But her daughter Christine Baldock, who waited by her side, told the Post “her dignity had gone” by the time medical staff arrived.

“I understand the living come first, but for a five-minute job – which is all the doctor was there for – it’s wrong,” said the 65-year-old, now living in Canvey Island, Essex.

She added her mum began to go stiff in her chair during the wait.

“I tried to lift her hand and put it on to her chest and I could just about lift her arm. She’d lost all the colour from her face and her arms were starting to mottle.

“It was awful for us to have to see her like that.”

But Christine added staff at the home were “brilliant” and even waited beyond their shift hours with the family.

Paying tribute to her late mum, Christine added: “She was the wind beneath our wings. She was everything a mum should be. My kids still remember the jam tarts she used to make when we visited her house.”

A spokesman for the Partnership of East London Co-Operatives (PELC), which runs NHS 111 and GPs services in the area, said he was sorry for the family’s loss but couldn’t comment on an individual case.

He added PELC hadn’t received a complaint from the family, and encouraged them to get in touch.