A coroner will investigate how a Barking pensioner came to die of a drugs overdose in his sheltered accommodation.

David Robert Goss, 68, was found unresponsive at his address in Roxwell Road in November, East London Coroner’s Court has heard.

“The paramedics who attended upon Mr Goss found him to have critically low blood pressure and a slow heart rate,” said Graeme Irvine, senior coroner for east London.

His condition was felt by the paramedics to be “indicative of somebody who had taken an opioid overdose".

Mr Goss was admitted to Newham Hospital, where he went into septic shock and died on November 7.

His cause of death has since been given as a combination of pneumonia and mixed overdose, against a backdrop of ischemic heart disease.

“It seems to me that the circumstances set out within the cause of death suggest an unnatural cause of death due to the role of medications,” Mr Irvine said on Thursday, November 28.

“Accordingly, I have listed today’s hearing to open an inquest.”

He declared Mr Goss’s family “interested persons”, giving them the right to interrogate evidence ahead of the inquest and question any witnesses called to give evidence.

The coroner asked the family to provide his staff with a statement about Mr Goss, “focusing upon his family, his career, his likes, dislikes, and the circumstances of his accommodation".

In particular, said Mr Irvine, he also wanted to know “what the circumstances were in relation to Mr Goss’s medicines administration".

"Sometimes elderly people are allowed to take their own medication and other times there are restrictions. I would like to know about that.”

He asked his coroner’s officers to obtain Mr Goss’s medical records, statements from any attending police officers and a statement from the sheltered accommodation provider, which was not named in court.

He also asked his officers to find out whether Mr Goss was under treatment by any mental health trust and, if so, whether his death had triggered any governance investigations, “given the possibility that Mr Goss sustained a deliberate overdose of opioid medication".

The full inquest was listed for June 26.

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