Gosport Hospital doctors should face criminal charges over scores of patient deaths, family say

Doctors at a scandal-hit hospital should face criminal charges over scores of patient deaths, the daughter of one of one of those who died in suspicious circumstances has said.

A long-awaited report into the deaths of 833 patients at Gosport War Memorial Hospital between 1988 and 2000 will be published next week.

Families hope it will finally shine a spotlight on why so many patients died and condemn how authorities have handled their cases.

Speaking ahead of Wednesday’s publication of the report, Gillian Mackenzie said she hoped it would lead to those involved in the care of her mother Gladys Richards and other patients to face prosecution.

She said: “I won’t be satisfied with just a report. I want it to go very much further, on behalf of all the families, because we all need justice.

“I shall be pushing for this to go to the criminal court and I would like to see some of the people who were involved behind bars.”

The report is the culmination of a four-year, £13 million inquiry headed by former Bishop of Liverpool James Jones, who led the Hillsborough inquiry.

It centres around allegations stretching back 30 years that patients at the hospital were “almost routinely” given strong painkillers in high doses, which in some cases led to their deaths.

Families have suggested their - often elderly - relatives were given excessive doses of the drugs to “keep them quiet” on over-stretched wards and raised fears they may have been deliberately euthanised.

The allegations focus on the actions of former GP Dr Jane Barton, who was found guilty of “multiple instances of serious professional misconduct” by the General Medical Council (GMC) in 2010 but was not struck off and quickly retired.

Inquests into 11 of the deaths in 2009 and 2013 ruled medication prescribed by Dr Barton had contributed to six patients dying. 

Dr Barton, who is reportedly accused of prescribing fatal overdoses of opiate painkillers to her elderly patients, is expected to be found responsible for hundreds of the deaths, according to The Sunday Times.

Police launched an investigation into 92 of the deaths in 2002 but after a protracted inquiry, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) decided in 2006 that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute.

Over the past two decades there have been a number of further police and NHS investigations, as well as a 2013 report into patient care by Prof Richard Baker, which found opiates painkillers prescribed at the hospital since 1988 had “almost certainly shortened the lives of some patients”. 

“It cannot be ruled out that a small number of [patients] would otherwise have been eventually discharged from hospital alive,’ his report said.

But families have always complained investigations by authorities have progressed painstakingly slowly and failed to reveal the true circumstances around the deaths.

In 2014, then-Health Minister Norman Lamb set up the Gosport Independent Panel and announced an inquiry, originally expected to take two years at a cost of around £3.6million. It has stretched on until now, costing the taxpayer a total of £13million.

Mrs Mackenzie was the first family member to go to the police with concerns in 1998, after her 91-year-old mother died suddenly after being transferred to the Gosport War Memorial Hospital to recover following a hip operation.

Patient notes showed Mrs Richards was “not obviously in pain” but she was prescribed strong painkillers by Dr Barton. An inquest in 2013 ruled the drugs “more than insignificantly” contributed to her death.

But Mrs Mackenzie said when she first reported the death to police she was effectively “patted on the head and told ‘there, there, you’re upset about your mother’”.

She added that she hoped the report would “wake up” the authorities, including the Ministry of Justice and the Crown Prosecution Service.

“I’m hoping this report will lead to a case in the criminal court - although it will probably take years and I won’t be around that long,” said Mrs Mackenzie, who has recently undergone cancer treatment. 

“If the report is done properly it should identify the 15 strongest cases that can be taken to court, and I don’t mind whether my case is one or not, as long as eventually there is a conviction for the people involved.”