Clifford’s GP: ‘Care in jail better than NHS’

MAX CLIFFORD’S GP yesterday told his inquest that prisoners get better healthcare than the public.

The disgraced publicist, 74, collapsed at Littlehey Prison, in Cambridgeshire, where he was serving an eight-year sentence for historical sex offences. He died in hospital on Dec 10 2017.

Dr Monica Chambers, a prison doctor, said Clifford did not always take his medication at the “correct doses, if at all” before he died of heart failure.

She said: “Many people hate taking tablets, many people are wary of taking tablets, many people do not like the side-effects.”

She did not comment on whether this would have affected Clifford’s health.

Asked about the quality of the prison’s healthcare by Kimberley Aiken-barre, representing Clifford’s family, Dr Chambers said: “I think that our sick patients get a much better standard of healthcare than anybody does on the outside.”

Clifford first reported shortness of breath on July 26 2017, she told yesterday’s hearing, and was referred to a cardiologist at Hinchingbrooke Hospital, where he died.

The hospital wrote to the prison to say it had established that his “heart failure came on gradually; there wasn’t a sudden event”, Dr Chambers said.

A post mortem examination recorded his cause of death as congestive heart failure.

Simon Milburn, assistant coroner for Cambridgeshire, said during the opening of the hearing that Clifford’s death “could not have been prevented” but that the inquest would examine “whether there were missed opportunities to provide an earlier diagnosis”.

The hearing, listed for five days, continues.