A CORONER is to examine whether there was a delay in a serving prisoner who had cancer of the tongue being given a hospital appointment.

Michael Boylan, 61, had been transferred from Forest Bank Prison in Salford to HMP Berwyn in Wrexham on September 21, 2017.

He had been given an “urgent referral” after an examination by a prison dentist who was concerned about his health, given Mr Boylan’s history of cancer.

Mr Boylan, from the Greater Manchester area, died in Nightingale House Hospice in Wrexham on May 14, 2018, having been transferred there for palliative care.

Both prisons were legally represented at the pre-inquest hearing in Ruthin and Joanne Lees, assistant coroner for North Wales East and Central, said Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board should also be considered an interested party.

Home Office pathologist Dr Brian Rodgers has given the provisional cause of death as widespread bronchial pneumonia caused by cancer of the tongue.

Mrs Lees said although more evidence needed to be gathered it should still be treated as a death from natural causes.

But solicitor Andrew Bridgman, representing Mr Boylan’s family, said that could change if systemic failures were found to have occurred.

He said: “There are clear delays in referring Mr Boylan for his appointment.”

Mrs Lees said: “He had an appointment with the maxillofacial team and I want to know why it did not take place and I understand Mr Boylan was not aware of it.”

At an earlier pre-hearing it was suggested that something had gone wrong during an earlier dose of chemotherapy but Mrs Lees said she had no evidence of that.

She said that at this stage she was not inclined to designate it as an Article 2 inquest which, under the European Convention of Human Rights, was for when the person was deemed to have died while in the care of the state.

The inquest was adjourned to a date to be fixed.