Yesterday Sandra Mosley criticised hospital managers for the cancellation and for the telephone blunder.

Mr Mosley had already had pre-op medicine for a heart valve operation at the Northern General Hospital in Sheffield when it was cancelled. Just 15 minutes before he was due in the operating theatre, his surgeon called in sick.

He went home and the following day decided to pop down to his allotment near his home in the village of Todwick, near Sheffield.

Mrs Mosely said: “He was the village handyman and he went out and cut a woman’s garden in the morning before coming home for lunch. At a quarter to two, he kissed me and waved me off to work.”

When he did not come home for his tea, his wife and son became worried and went to look for him. They found him dead at the allotment, his van parked near by and his radio still playing.

Mr Mosley, a parish councillor who was nicknamed Mr Todwick because of his work in the village, is believed to have died of a heart attack.

Mrs Mosley said yesterday: “We feel we have been robbed. We feel if he had had his operation he would still be here today. The coroner has confirmed that he died because his heart valve packed up. I am hurt and very angry at the National health Service.

“The day after he died a nurse phoned me to say would he go in on Sunday, ready to be operated on the following day. I said, ‘He won’t be there. He has died.’

“I said if it had been done last Monday he would still be here. They could only apologise. I haven’t heard anything since then. I would have hoped someone would have phoned me.”

She added: “That would have helped a bit and it would have meant something to me. My son will complain to the hospital. There is nothing else we can do.”

Fraser Mosley, her son, said: “We are still in a state of shock. To go into hospital one day, come out the next without having the operation, then die the following day is hard to take.

“He was very active and generally fit and we are sure he would have lived a long time if the heart operation had gone ahead.”

A spokesman for the hospital said: “We were very shocked and saddened to hear of Mr Mosley’s sudden death and our thoughts are very much with his family at this time.”

Mr Mosley ran his own electrical shop in Darnall, Sheffield, for 40 years until he retired two and half years ago.

By Nigel Hawkes, Health Editor