One of Britain’s worst serial killers died in “excruciating pain” after refusing medical screening which could have saved him, an inquest heard yesterday.
Scot , 72, second only to Harold Shipman as the UK’s , was found slumped over a toilet at HMP Full Sutton, near York, on May 10 last year.
He had suffered a blocked artery in his lung, leaving him in agony because of bleeding in his abdominal cavity. Medics, though, didn’t find any need for urgent treatment.
The killer, who slaughtered 15 young men and boys during a killing spree in Willesden Green and Muswell Hill in London from 1978 to 1983, had declined help from healthcare staff at the prison since arriving in 2003.
Nilsen, from Fraserburgh, refused routine screening for an abdominal aortic aneurysm which led to his death, though it was offered to all men aged 65. Lisa Noble, head of healthcare at Full Sutton, said Nilsen had been reluctant to engage.
She said: “He did not particularly like healthcare, and he did not particularly like healthcare staff.”
Noble told the hearing it was “likely” screening would have prevented the rupture.
He told staff he was in “excruciating pain” before he was taken to hospital. But there was no “code blue” as he was not having difficulty breathing, though he made numerous requests for help.
A paramedic described Nilsen as looking “ashen” on arrival at the prison at 5pm on May 10. Security procedures meant there was a 30 minute delay in getting him from his cell to the ambulance.
He died in the early hours of May 12 last year in York hospital.
Sue McAllister, Prison and Probations ombudsman, was concerned healthcare staff did not review his case.
In a statement, she said: “He lay in his own faeces as his condition worsened for about two hours.
There was an unacceptable delay getting the ambulance out of the prison.”
Hull coroner Professor Paul Marks, who recorded death by natural causes, will write to NHS England regarding ambulance delays.
Nilsen is thought to have killed 15 men, burning their remains on a bonfire.
