Private patients could receive ‘inferior care’ due to lack of mandated standards - coroner

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By Daniel Pye

Patients treated privately are at risk of receiving “inferior care” to those treated in the NHS as doctors don’t have to follow NICE guidelines, a coroner has warned.

Darren Stewart, assistant coroner for Surrey, said that while the standards have to be followed in the NHS, it is “not mandatory” for doctors treating the same condition privately.

“I am concerned that there is a lacuna in mandated care standards for patients treated privately by clinicians within the regulatory framework which gives rise to a risk of death,” he said.

Stewart issued the warning in a prevention of future deaths report following the inquest of 81-year-old Gary Starbuck from Surrey who died from metastatic cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma.

He was a patient with complex health needs who received treatment for skin cancer from 2011 until his death in August 2021.

His inquest heard the care and treatment he received was initially provided privately.