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A hospital doctor died after a cigarette started a fire which ripped through her Canonbury flat as she slept, an inquest has heard.

Dr Claire Sheppey, 47, who worked as an anaesthetist consultant at the Royal London Hospital, in Whitechapel, was carried from her Crowland Terrace home by firefighters on March 16.

Paramedics tried to revive her in the street and later in the hospital she had worked at just the day before, but were unable to save her.

An inquest at St Pancras Coroner’s Court on Tuesday heard she was never aware of the fire, and that her flat did not have any smoke alarms.

Neighbours called the fire brigade after seeing flames “punching” out of the windows of Dr Sheppey’s flat, the inquest was told. Fire crews started arriving four minutes after the first call, at 1.43am, but Dr Sheppey was not found until 19 minutes later.

Firefighter Andrew James, based at Euston, said he found Dr Sheppey unconscious in her bedroom.

Asked by senior coroner Mary Hassell why she was only found during a second search of the flat, Mr James replied: “It was a fully developed fire and [other crews] have gone in and attacked the fire. There was a structural collapse…

“When we went in there we did a secondary sweep and found her. There was a lot of smoke in the flat and she was not conscious. The most important thing was to get her out as soon as possible.”

The inquest heard that Reading-born Dr Sheppey, who lived alone, had a few glasses of wine and a smoke in her front room before going to sleep in the adjacent bedroom.

It is believed that a cigarette butt, which she thought she had extinguished, had been disposed of in a plastic shopping bag, where it started a smouldering fire.

Fire investigator Dean Wilkinson told the inquest: “When it was first discovered it was a fully-developed fire. It would have been going for half an hour to three hours. In my opinion, more towards the two-hour mark.”

He added: “Not only did it burn through the floor but got underneath the skirting boards, which then allowed smoke to get to the bedroom.

“Fire crews encountered so much smoke they could not see their hands. There would have been a lot of smoke in that flat.”

In March, the Tribune revealed that the first engine arrived within London Fire Brigade’s target response time but the second took eight minutes and 54 seconds to get there – missing its target by almost a minute.

Crowland Terrace is between Islington fire station, in Upper Street, and the former Kingsland Road station, one of 10 bases across London closed by former Mayor Boris Johnson in January 2014.

At the time of Dr Sheppey’s death, the Fire Brigades Union raised concerns that the second engine, if it had come from Kingsland Road, would have arrived quicker than it did coming from Shoreditch.

Ms Hassell accepted evidence from London Fire Brigade that the attendance time of the second engine “did not have a significant impact on the outcome of the incident”.

Dr Sheppey was part of the Royal London Hospital’s response team during the London terror attacks on July 7, 2005. She had also been a tutor at the Royal College of Anaesthetists for six years.

A post-mortem examination gave acute carbon monoxide poisoning as the cause of death.

Ms Hassell ruled the death an accident.

She said: “Dr Sheppey had been smoking, she discarded a cigarette butt which wasn’t properly out in a plastic bag and went to bed. A slow, smouldering fire began.

“The fumes would have been very toxic and the smoke was very thick. There is a very high likelihood that she fell asleep and never noticed something was wrong.”

The coroner added: “It’s important for public safety that everyone who hears about this incident understands that no smoke detection was a factor.”