An woman died two days after she was sent home from hospital in a taxi in her nightclothes.

NHS Lanarkshire has been ordered to apologise after the 78-year-old woman was discharged from Monklands Hospital in Airdrie.

She was admitted to the emergency department on May 2, 2016, after complaining of abdominal pains.

Staff failed to properly check her medical records and missed an abnormal blood test result before sending her home.

The Scottish Public Services Ombudsman's Rosemary Agnew said she was "shocked" at the way the woman, named only as Mrs C, was treated.

Ms Agnew said there was "strong evidence" the woman's death could have been avoided.

The patient's husband complained to the ombudsman about the care his wife had received.

He said he found her knocking at the door, distressed and in pain, in the early hours of the morning after she was sent home from Monklands Hospital in a taxi at 2am on May 3, 2016.

Staff in the emergency department discharged Mrs C in her nightclothes after diagnosing her with gastroenteritis.

She did not leave her bed for the next two days, with her husband saying she was still in pain.

Mrs C died on May 5 and a post-mortem later found she had been suffering from a severe heart condition.

Expert advisers told Ms Agnew that discharging an elderly patient with multiple health concerns at 2am was unacceptable.

The ombudsman said: "I am critical, even shocked, that this situation occurred at all."

Ms Agnew added: "Although we cannot definitively say that Mrs C's death was avoidable due to the post-mortem having shown severe triple vessel coronary artery atheroma and valvular heart disease, there was strong evidence that it may have been."

NHS Lanarkshire was given a list of six recommendations to improve their care and ordered to apologise.

Dr Jane Burns, the health board's acute divisional medical director, said: "We regret any instance where we fail to provide the highest standards of care for our patients and we will contact the complainant directly to offer our sincere apologies for the failings identified in the report.

"We have fully accepted the recommendations within the ombudsman's report and will develop an action plan to address them.

"The lessons learned will be shared to help avoid similar occurrences in future."