Gosport inquiry: More than 450 patients died after being given lethal doses of opiates 'without medical justification', public inquiry finds

More than 450 patients died after being given lethal doses of opiate painkillers “without medical justification” over a 12 year period at the Gosport War Memorial Hospital in Hampshire, a major public inquiry has found.

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 retired GP Dr Jane Barton.

This was allowed to continue despite senior consultants being aware of the prescribing, and was carried out by nursing staff who “had a responsibility to challenge this prescribing” but did not, the report found.

Families, who have battled for 20 years to have their loved ones’ deaths investigated, were “marginalised” by hospital staff and “failed” by the police and medical regulators who did not act or investigate thoroughly, said former Bishop of Liverpool James Jones, who headed the panel.

Though nurses did raise concerns about the prescribing of diamorphine - the medical name for heroin - in 1991 and 1992, the bishop said: “Their warnings went unheeded and the opportunity to rectify the practice was lost, deaths resulted and 22 years later it became necessary to establish the panel in order to discover the truth of what happened."

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