A GP PRACTICE will be told to keep a closer watch on mentally-ill patients after a paranoid schizophrenic woman was found dead at her home.

It is still not clear exactly how Elisabeth Lomas died but, at an inquest into her death on Tuesday, coroner Darren Salter was concerned that Kennington Health Centre had let her slip through the net.

Ms Lomas’ former partner Deane Owen and their son Thorne, 17, raised their own concerns, saying she had been wearing the same clothes for a year and had stopped buying food.

The picture they painted seemed to contradict the conclusion of a support worker who visited Ms Lomas twice at home and found her to be in a “stable” condition.

The inquest heard Ms Lomas, 53, who lived alone in Playfield Road, Kennington, had missed six GP appointments in 2014 and stopped getting a repeat prescription for anti-psychotic drugs in September, the last time anyone saw her alive.

She was found dead in the house in January after a neighbour alerted police.

Mr Owen, who spoke to Oxford Coroner’s Court via a video link from Australia where he and his son now live, asked why she had been allowed to miss crucial face-to-face appointments.

Speaking directly to Dr Linda Jones, who appeared for the health centre, he said: “You wouldn’t have been able to use clinical judgement if you hadn’t seen her yourself.

“On that basis, I think there should be a system put in place so if that is the case you can link back with the mental health authority and make sure that a patient has your care or mental health care.”

The coroner agreed, saying: “That is a good point.”

He said Ms Lomas had a history of aggressive outbursts and anxiety dating back to 2000 and had been sectioned twice to the Warneford Hospital in Headington under the Mental Health Act.

Dr Jones admitted Kennington Health Centre had no protocol for dealing with patients who repeatedly cancelled appointments.

But she said that in the wake of Ms Lomas’ death she was trying to create a computer system to flag up mental health patients who stopped requesting repeat prescriptions.

The coroner, who welcomed the move, recorded an open verdict.

He said: “I think it is probably that this was a natural cause of death but I don’t have the evidence to say that with any degree of confidence.”

He added: “I also plan to write to the GP surgery because I am concerned about the lack of face-to-face meetings after a discharge from the mental health trust.”