Gosport inquiry - LIVE: Doctor 'responsible' for use of lethal levels of opiates which killed at least 450, inquiry finds
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Your support makes all the difference.Up to 650 patients died from lethal doses of opiate painkillers given “without medical justification” over a 12 year period at the Gosport War Memorial Hospital in Hampshire, a major public inquiry has found.
The Gosport Independent Panel found evidence of opioid use without an appropriate clinical justification in 456 of the patients who died, but taking into account the missing records it concludes there are “probably at least another 200 patients were similarly affected”.
Campaigners have called for prosecutions to follow the publication of the findings.
Later on Wednesday the government will give a statement on future prosecutions for the deaths after the report said the “institutionalised practice of shortening lives” between 1989 and 2000 was introduced by Dr Jane Barton.
The inquiry was led by the former bishop of Liverpool, the Rt Rev James Jones, who previously chaired the Hillsborough Independent Panel.
“The documents seen by the Panel show that for a 12 year period a clinical assistant, Dr Barton, was responsible for the practice of prescribing which prevailed on the wards,” the inquiry chair Bishop of Liverpool James Jones said.
A separate review into deaths at the hospital, led by Professor Richard Baker, found "almost routine use of opiates" for elderly patients had "almost certainly shortened the lives of some".
That report could not be published in full until 2013, 10 years after it was completed, while inquests were held and due to a police investigation.
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In 2010, the General Medical Council ruled that Dr Jane Barton, who has since retired, was guilty of multiple instances of professional misconduct relating to 12 patients who died at the hospital.
Health secretary Jeremy Hunt is due to address MPs on the findings of the Gosport inquiry, and will face questions about the previous investigations and whether charges should now be brought.
Cindy Grant's father, Stanley Carby, died at the hospital in 1999 after being admitted for rehabilitation following a stroke.
She said: "I think there is somebody that needs to be prosecuted for what's gone on there."
She told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "We want justice to be served because these families' lives were taken - mums, dads, grandads, grandmas.
"We all know what went on at that hospital. We want justice served."
Liberal Democrat MP Stephen Lloyd, whose constituent, Gillian McKenzie, was the first to go to Hampshire Police in 1998 with concerns over the death of her mother, said lives might have been saved if she had been taken more seriously.
"If the police had taken her seriously, if the senior managers at the hospital had taken her seriously earlier, bluntly it appears that lives would have been saved.
"That is a shocking, shocking indictment of this entire process."
Mr Lloyd criticised the investigations carried out by the police and NHS, adding: "We finish finally with the GMC many years later finding that Dr Barton did overuse opiates and they didn't even debar her."
"I think it has been an absolute travesty for 20 years," he told Today.
The Eastbourne MP said: "If the report is as strong as I - and I think the relatives - anticipate, then I will be quizzing Jeremy Hunt directly and I will be saying to him that certain individuals should be facing criminal prosecution."
Lib Dem health spokesman and former health minister Norman Lamb has thanked Mr Hunt for "backing and trusting" his judgement in 2013 "without hesitation in proceeding with this panel inquiry".
He said: "Does he agree that we have to find a way of overcoming the problem of different inquiries through inquests, through police, through regulators, which together stops the vital information getting out into the public domain and stopped proper investigation into the those issues?
"Does he agree also that we need to have a mechanism to ensure that in future families are never ignored again, that when legitimate allegations of wrongdoing are made, that they are investigated properly and that families are involved in that process?"
Mr Hunt replied: "His instincts have been proved absolutely right on that but it isn't an easy thing to do, it causes all sorts of feathers to be ruffled and he stuck to his guns, and absolutely rightly so."
He added: "If proper attention had been given to this in 2001, we all know that Mid Staffs started in 2005.
"How many other lessons throughout the health service, how many other tragedies could potentially have been avoided if these things had come to light sooner, and so that is why I think it would be the wrong reaction today to say that we're getting there on patient safety, transparency problems are solved, I think there's a lot further to go."
George Osborne, former chancellor and current editor of the Evening Standard, has shared his newspaper's front page.
Bishop Jones has said there was "lots of tears" and "grieving" when families were presented with the findings of the report on Wednesday morning.
He told a press conference the report did not explore why the practice of prescribing may have taken place at the hospital.
"Questions about motive are beyond the terms of reference for the panel, but those are questions that will need to be prosecuted," he said.
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