Hospital failures contributed to death of Sir Richard Branson’s wife

 A private hospital’s failure to provide preventative medication contributed to the death of Sir Richard Branson’s wife, an inquest has concluded.

Lady Joan Branson, 80, died on November 24 after suffering a cardiac arrest at the private Lister Hospital in Chelsea, west London, which is owned and operated by HCA Healthcare.

Westminster Coroner’s Court heard on Wednesday that she died after suffering a pulmonary embolism, a sudden, dangerous blockage in a lung artery, resulting from deep vein thrombosis.

The virtual inquest heard that Lady Joan was admitted to the hospital on November 17 after a fall weeks earlier on Necker Island – a private luxury retreat in the Caribbean’s British Virgin Islands owned by her billionaire husband.

Lady Joan described the fall to her GP as “tripping over some slippers by the bed” and was diagnosed with sustained fractures of the pelvis and fractures of the right hip, the virtual inquest heard.

Haematologist Dr George Adams told the inquest that Lady Joan was “extremely high risk” for blood clots and the “biggest risk factor by far was her immobility and her fracture”.

Glasgow-born Lady Joan did not receive any prophylactic anticoagulation – the preventative use of treatments to stop dangerous blood clots from forming – from her hospital admission to her death.

Dr Adams said he believed this contributed to her death, saying prophylactic anticoagulation “reduces the number of clots and the size of those clots”, adding: “More likely than not, it would have reduced the chances of her having a fatal pulmonary embolism.”

The Imperial academic, who was not involved in Lady Joan’s care, added that “appropriate anticoagulation” would have “probably prevented her from dying”.

Professor Fiona Wilcox, senior coroner for Inner West London, described Lady Joan as a “wonderful woman” who was “unfailingly kind”.

Giving her conclusion, Professor Wilcox said it was “not a case of neglect” and there “wasn’t an absence of treatment”.

The coroner said Lady Joan did not receive prophylactic anticoagulants at the hospital despite a “very high risk of developing deep vein thrombosis”.

Giving her conclusion, the coroner said: “I do find her death would have likely been prevented and the lack of anticoagulation did cause or contribute to her death probably.”

Lady Joan also did not receive an immediate Venous Thromboembolism (VTE) assessment to check her risk of developing harmful blood clots, the inquest heard.