A nursing home supervisor left a pensioner's illness out of her care plan because she could not spell it, an inquest heard.

Edith Pyett, 71, who was crippled by advanced Alzheimer's, died of severe dehydration four days after leaving Belmont Care Centre in Eastbourne.

Her husband James, 77, a retired hospital porter, put his wife of 51 years into the home in Pevensey Bay Way for a week while he visited their daughter.

He returned a day early when concerns about her condition were raised by a health visitor, he told an inquest in Eastbourne yesterday. He said he barely recognised her.

Mrs Pyett's condition deteriorated and she was admitted to hospital.

She died the following day on March 7.

Post-mortem tests showed her kidneys had failed due to severe dehydration.

The inquest heard how Mrs Pyett, who also suffered from diabetes, had been failed by the home's system of recording vital information about patients.

Mr Pyett, who had cared for his wife since she developed her illness in 1995, told a jury at the inquest he had been shocked to see her when he returned.

He said: "I hardly recognised her. She was unkempt and her hair was all over the place.

"Her head and eyes were rolling. I thought she was very ill."

Mr Pyett, of Westham, near Pevensey, said: "She had an incontinence pad on but no knickers. I felt her trousers and they were saturated.

"I had to get her home. My main priority was to get her somewhere safe, somewhere comfortable.

"I fed her juice. She normally took it gently but she gulped it down."

Mr Pyett said he informed staff at the Belmont about his wife's needs before leaving her, saying she could not give herself food or drink.

He said: "I spent an hour telling staff her needs. My wife had a good appetite and liked to drink.

"She liked a cup of tea but she could not indicate she was thirsty.

"I told them she needed help with her food and drink."

Annette Ducille-Horton, deputy manager at the time of Mrs Pyett's stay, said she had failed to enter Mrs Pyett's Alzheimer's disease in her care plan because she could not spell it.

She said: "The reason I did not put Alzheimer's in was because I couldn't spell it. I was going to do it later but I didn't."

Caroline Carpenter, a care assistant at the home for six years, said she was worried about Mrs Pyett's condition but could find nothing in her care plan to explain it.

The inquest heard how, despite the concerns of several care assistants that Mrs Pyett was not drinking, a fluid monitoring chart was never set up for her even though other patients had such charts.

Ms Ducille-Horton said Mrs Pyett at first ate and drank well but deteriorated later.

The inquest was also told how the concerns of staff that Mrs Pyett had stopped taking fluid were not properly recorded in daily notes and were only mentioned by word of mouth among the care assistants.

Pathologist Dr Jane Mercer, who carried out post- mortem tests, said levels of dehydration she found in Mrs Pyett were the worst she had ever seen.

She said: "Renal failure was the cause of death, which was caused by severe dehydration."

The inquest was adjourned until today.