An 84-year-old healthcare assistant who died after contracting coronavirus has been hailed as an inspiration for continuing to work despite the risk she faced.

Margaret Tapley, who most recently worked in Linfoot Ward at Witney Community Hospital in Oxfordshire, embodied all that is best about NHS staff, her trust said.

She died at the Great Western Hospital in Swindon in the early hours of Sunday.

The grandmother had been determined to carry on her work despite being well past retirement age and would regularly do night shifts, Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust said.

She did her last shift on April 10.

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Her grandson, Tom Wood - who is a senior nurse in an A&E department - described her as his "inspiration", the trust said.

In a statement on its website, it quoted Mr Wood as saying: "She was a huge reason as to why I am a nurse today. She took huge pride in her work but was so humble. She embodied the nursing spirit.

"For anyone who worked with her or knew her, that spirit that we all saw and felt lives on in us."

The trust's chief executive, Stuart Bell, described Mrs Tapley as "a legend on the ward, and more widely throughout the whole hospital", and said it was "remarkable" that she stayed on to support her colleagues for so many years.

He added: "She was also remarkable in the way she provided calm reassurance, support and encouragement to her colleagues, and compassion and care to her patients.

"Margaret knew coronavirus posed a risk, and if she had wished she would have been perfectly justified in self-isolating, but she wanted to continue in her role, doing the job she loved. She embodied all that is best in those who work for the NHS."

Mr Bell said Mrs Tapley had been a "central figure in the life of the ward" and would be "greatly missed by all those who work there and by those who knew her across the trust".