A woman who didn't get to see her father one final time before he died has raised her concerns over communication between families and staff at the Royal Cornwall Hospital.

Helen Martin, daughter of Falmouth man Derek Kneebone, was 40 hours away in New Zealand when her father died of peritonitis in August last year after starting chemotherapy for metastatic prostate cancer.

She has asked why, when her father's health started to deteriorate in the last few days before he died, no-one at the hospital had called to say "you need to come straight away."

An inquest into the death of Mr Kneebone, of 8 Berkeley Mews, who was 73 when he died, heard that he was diagnosed last summer with prostate cancer, elements of which had already started to spread to other organs, and was given a prognosis of two to four years.

He was also told that chemotherapy treatment could prolong his life by 17 to 22 months, and he started treatment on July 21, with his daughter Sallie travelling back to Falmouth to help look after him.

She told the inquest that the following morning he had been "very sick", and following a 999 call he was taken to the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Treliske, where he would stay until his death on August 7.

His other daughter raised several concerns at the hearing, including why she and her sister had been told two "hugely different" prognoses for their father by the Sunrise Centre at Treliske, telling one of them he had eight to 12 years, and the other he had five to seven years.

She also asked what information he had been given prior to undertaking treatment, whether he had been informed that his cancer had metastasised and spread to his liver, and whether he had the adequate capacity to make decisions about his health, as well as airing her concern about communication between different departments caring for her father, and between the hospital and herself.

She said: "I'm wondering whether the length of the prognosis that he was given was accurate, given that he had cancer in his liver. If it's not, then my dad was robbed of the time he would have spent.

"He could have called me, his daughter, in New Zealand and spent time with me, and not in treatment."

Dr John McGrane said that there had been no signs of the cancer metastasising and spreading to Mr Kneebone's liver before he started treatment. He also said that metastasis was not the same as liver cancer, and that it would have left Mr Kneebone in the same prognostic group as before, with a life expectancy of between 22 months and four years, which could have been increased by chemotherapy.

He also said Mr Kneebone had been fully aware of all discussion of his treatment, although when discussing chemotherapy and a prognosis with any patient it can take a while to sink in.

He told the inquest that after his admission to hospital he was diagnosed with pneumonia and treated accordingly, until August 5 when his symptoms worsened, and he was found to have a small ulcer or perforation in his bowel, which had caused an infection, and ultimately his death.

There were problems with the clotting ability of Mr Kneebone's blood, which was an underlying cause of his death, and Dr McGrane said chemotherapy could be a cause, "but it's a small factor when compared to the clotting risk that's metastatic cancer."

Asked about communication with the family, he told the coroner that Mr Kneebone was in charge of decisions about his care until the last 24 hours of his life, and the hospital had one main point of contact for his family - his daughter Sallie.

The coroner asked how he could be assured that communication with families, especially overseas, could be improved. He also suggested that at shift changeovers information be passed between doctors, so that any family members who called could be kept up to date.

Giving a conclusion of death by natural causes, assistant coroner Andrew Cox accepted the pathologist's report that Mr Kneebone died due to peritonitis caused by a bowel perforation and infection caused by thrombosis and cancer of the prostate.