Mr Walter Thomas Brimelow (75) started legal proceedings against East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust last year after he developed malignant mesothelioma, which he said developed over years working in maintenance for the Trust's predecessor.

From the late 1960s, Mr Brimelow worked at Burnley General, Victoria, Bank Hall, Hartley and Marsden hospitals, often in the boiler rooms where he would strip boiler doors and pipework of asbestos lagging.

Mr Brimelow moved to Burnley in the 1960s and worked as a bricklayer before getting the hospital maintenance job. His wife, Margaret, told the inquest he had told her he had to remove the lagging with his bare hands and dust would be released into the air.

She said: "He started to feel ill in March last year and was treated for pneumonia and seemed to get better but then he got it again. He had an X-ray and there was a shadow on his lung and doctors said it was mesothelioma and asked him if he had ever come into contact with asbestos."

Mr Brimelow had accused his employers of exposing him to risk of injury, failing to warn him of the risks, failed to damp down dry asbestos, and of not giving him effective protective equipment.

Speaking after the inquest, Mrs Brimelow said since her husband's death the legal action against the Trust had been resolved and the family had received compensation.

Dr Walid Salman, consultant pathologist at Burnley General Hospital, carried out the post-mortem examination, and told the inquest a tumour in the right lung had spread to the chest wall, heart and liver.

He added that mesothelioma is usually caused by asbestos and there was evidence of background exposure. Mr Brimelow's history of asbestos exposure meant this was likely to be the main cause of the cancer.

East Lancashire Coroner Mr Richard Taylor said: "I have no hesitation in this case that my finding is this is a death caused by industrial disease."