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Coleen Nolan has revealed she was once subjected to vicious trolling following one of the most difficult decisions her family ever had to make.

The 61 year old star featured on Tuesday's Loose Women, where the panel discussed the poignant subject of "have you experienced care home guilt?"

This led Coleen to look back on the moment she and her siblings took the decision to place their mother, Maureen, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, into a care home after it reached a stage where leaving her alone at home had become too perilous. Maureen passed away in 2007 at the age of 81.

Coleen said: "I think it's probably the hardest decision me and my family made with my mum. You know, we looked after her as long as we could, you know, between us. She wanted to stay in a sheltered accommodation, but then that became where it was just too dangerous.

"You know, she was leaving electric kettles on a gas hob and not even noticing, and my brother would go around and there was smoke, and then I'd have her during the day, and then my sister would have her at night."

Coleen added: "More and more and more it was getting really, really difficult. You know, she'd get up at three in the morning and we'd have to put double locked doors because she'd think it was daytime and just wander, you know, all those things. Ciara [Coleen's daughter] was tiny at the time, I think she was three, and she came down one morning and said: 'Oh mummy, gran's given me all these sweets', and it was all my mum's tablets.

"Now the thing, and they were red, they looked like Smarties. Now luckily Ciara was the child out of all three of my children that never ever put stuff in her mouth. If that had been the boys, they'd have eaten them, but she never did. I was like: 'Oh, we'll save them for Grandma,' and it was just getting more and more.

"She just needed more and more care, and we were working, and we had young kids, and we were doing the best that we could, especially my sisters, my other sisters who lived there at the time. It was the hardest decision ever to even suggest and we let my mum choose, actually.

"The one that we thought was going to be perfect for her because it was all super modern, and it was gorgeous, and it was newly built, she walked in and hated it. She picked one that we wouldn't have picked but it was her choice. She didn't quite understand what was happening, to be fair.

"Now, still living with all this guilt, I cannot tell you the amount of people that trolled us over it. Like, how dare you? Your mum's brought up all eight of you, and not one of you can look after.

"Yeah, we could. We could all look after my mum, but it wouldn't be safe. She got the really aggressive form. She had no idea where she was. She needed 24-hour supervision. We still got this guilt, and then we got loads of lovely people, but the amount of people were going, 'how can you sleep at night?' and I was like, 'grand, I'll tell you how... I don't sleep at night. None of us do. We cry every night because we've had to make this decision.'"

Coleen then highlighted that those who say 'well I looked after my mum' are often retired, whereas she was not retired and had young children to care for. She added: "My mum would be the first to say, I know, we knew our mum, she'd be the first to say, 'don't do that'.

"As I have now said to my children, if I get this, I've said, because it's my biggest fear, put me somewhere nice and walk away, and don't feel guilty. It doesn't matter how many times I say that to them, I know they will.

"But I just want them to know, and I want it to be out there, that I have given them permission, because I don't want them to go through what I went through."