{"id":886974,"date":"2026-09-10T14:12:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T14:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/886974\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T14:12:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T14:12:12","slug":"coroners-inquest-reveals-chelsea-private-hospital-at-fault-for-death-of-richard-bransons-wife-joan-branson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/886974\/","title":{"rendered":"Coroner\u2019s inquest reveals Chelsea private hospital at fault for death of Richard Branson\u2019s wife Joan Branson"},"content":{"rendered":"

A coroner\u2019s inquest has revealed that Lady Joan Branson, Sir Richard Branson\u2019s late wife, died of preventable causes in November last year.<\/p>\n

The Westminster Coroner\u2019s Court found that Lister Hospital in Chelsea is responsible for not providing Lady Branson with life-saving medication resulting in her death at age 80 on 24 November 2025.<\/p>\n

Senior coroner Professor Fiona Wilcox told the court on Wednesday that the hospital failed to deliver Lady Branson with vital prophylactic anticoagulants despite a \u201cvery high risk of developing deep vein thrombosis\u201d.<\/p>\n

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Lady Branson died from a pulmonary embolism, which is a sudden and dangerous blockage in a lung artery, resulting from deep vein thrombosis.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do find her death would have likely been prevented and the lack of anticoagulation did cause or contribute to her death probably,\u201d Professor Wilcox told the inquest.<\/p>\n

\"RichardRichard and Joan Branson were together for 50 years. Credit: Instagram<\/p>\n

Lady Branson was admitted to the private hospital in Chelsea on 17 November after suffering a fall a few weeks earlier which resulted in a fractured pelvis and right hip.<\/p>\n

Upon her admittance, attending doctor Dr Basir Kunduzi failed to complete a bleeding risk assessment.<\/p>\n

Haematologist Dr George Adams told the inquest that Lady Branson\u2019s fractures put her at an \u201cextremely high risk\u201d for blood clots and the \u201cbiggest risk factor by far was her immobility and her fracture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr Adams reinforced the hospital\u2019s failure to provide Lady Branson with prophylactic anticoagulants contributed to her death.<\/p>\n

\u201cMore likely than not, it would have reduced the chances of her having a fatal pulmonary embolism,\u201d Dr Adams said.<\/p>\n

Professor Wilcox assured the court that there \u201cwasn\u2019t an absence of treatment\u201d and it was \u201cnot a case of neglect,\u201d despite Lady Branson\u2019s preventable death.<\/p>\n

Dr Kunduzi told the inquest that the circumstances surrounding Lady Branson\u2019s death under his care have caused him to \u201creflect on my role as a doctor\u201d and the importance of \u201cgood communication between team members\u201d in a medical setting.<\/p>\n

Following her death last year, Sir Branson described his wife of 50 years as the \u201cshining star around which our family\u2019s universe has always orbited\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A coroner\u2019s inquest has revealed that Lady Joan Branson, Sir Richard Branson\u2019s late wife, died of preventable causes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":886975,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,2331,134,2332,5429,1720],"class_list":["post-886974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-culture","tag-entertainment","tag-pop-culture","tag-uk","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=886974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886974\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/886975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=886974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=886974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=886974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}