The chief executive of the Priory chain of alcohol and drug rehabilitation clinics, whose celebrity clientele is the stuff of legends, was today accused of running a care home where elderly patients were mistreated as a matter of routine.

Dr Chai Patel, a one-time Labour benefactor who has acted as an advisor on health to Tony Blair and former health secretary Alan Milburn, faces being struck off by the General Medical Council if found guilty of serious professional misconduct

Dr Patel, of Oxshott, Surrey, is accused of failing to safeguard the health, safety and welfare of elderly residents at Lynde House, in Twickenham, south-west London, in his previous role as chief executive of Westminster Health Care.

It was also alleged at the hearing in central London today that Dr Patel failed to provide “proper standards of care” at his care home.

He is accused of failing to investigate claims in a letter sent to him that residents at the £800-a-week home were often left drenched in their own urine and that catering and general standards of care were poor.

The GMC heard that the home was understaffed and under-resourced, information provided by an independent report published in 2001. A subsequent investigation, commissioned by the Kingston and Richmond Health Authority and published in 2002, found a catalogue of failings including a high level of falls among residents and unexplained bruising which was not investigated, the panel was told.

A report into complaints in relation to 13 patients by the McLaren Consultancy found.personal grooming was of a poor standard with the more dependent residents looking “unkempt and dishevelled”.

The report also said concerns and complaints have been raised repeatedly with Westminster Health Care since 1998 by residents, relatives and friends but that “insufficient action” had been taken.

Dr Patel, who has been a Government adviser on the Department of Health’s older people’s taskforce and a trustee of charity Help the Aged, denies serious professional misconduct.

His counsel, Mary O'Rourke, said the two reports into alleged failings at the home should not be admissible as evidence. She told the panel that Dr Patel had no personal responsibility for the care of residents because he had no patient-doctor relationship with them in his role.

Healthcare was provided by NHS trusts and GPs, she said, and as chief executive of Westminster Health Care, Dr Patel was not responsible for the management of Lynde House.

“Just because he is a registered general medical practitioner can’t impose upon him the responsibility of safeguarding the healthcare of residents in a nursing home,” Miss O’Rourke said.

A spokesman for his private office said today: “We don’t expect to get a negative outcome. We very much hope that these proceedings show he is not guilty of serious professional misconduct.”

The hearing continues.