Government officials tried to dodge inquiry into 800 deaths at single hospital, ex-health minister claims

A former health minister has claimed government officials tried to dodge a public inquiry into the suspicious deaths of more than 800 patients at a single hospital in England.

Liberal Democrat MP Norman Lamb said he suspected a “conspiracy” among officials, when in his absence they tried to reject an inquiry into hundreds of deaths allegedly linked to Dr Jane Barton.

He claims to have intervened at the last moment, allowing the subsequent launch of the probe into circumstances around the deaths of mainly elderly patients, many of whom were prescribed high doses of morphine.

The revelation comes as the inquiry, which also focusses on the death certificates signed by Dr Barton, is due to set out its findings on Wednesday.

A long list of investigations that predated the £13m inquiry, carried out by police, prosecutors, the NHS and the General Medical Council, failed to satisfy families, some of whom claim the circumstances around the deaths at Gosport War Memorial Hospital were covered up.

Mr Lamb, who campaigned for a public inquiry into the issue before becoming a minister, explained how, once in office, he had pushed government civil servants to show him the findings of a report by Professor Richard Baker into patient care.

He told BBC Newsnight: “I started to ask questions internally. I asked to see the Professor Baker report and, for two to three months, it wasn’t forthcoming.

“We then went away on holiday in the summer of 2013. Late at night one evening, I just happened to switch on my iPad and I saw an email from my private secretary, which said they were going to publish the Baker report the next day, and that they would announce there would be no public inquiry.

“I was incandescent about this. I immediately sensed that there might have been a conspiracy to cover this up whilst I was out of the country – to this day I don’t know whether it was cockup or coverup.”

He emailed back saying that the announcement was not to go out, and when he returned he met officials and made it clear that there had to be an inquiry.

The MP said that officials had sought the permission of another minister, who was less familiar with the case, to put out the announcement in his absence.

He accepted that the civil servants may have innocently forgotten he had repeatedly requested to see the Baker report, but added: “It was either grossly negligent to just proceed in that way, or there was something worse involved.”

He told of his horror at eventually reading in the Baker report how people who had gone into the hospital for rehabilitation had ended up dead after being prescribed morphine.

Mr Lamb pointed out that the facts around the case had been available to officials for some time and that he could not understand why they had never been put to an inquiry.

He argued that there had been a “systemic failure” in the health service, adding: “If you imagine what it must have been like for those families who lost loved ones in this hospital, just being left completely in the dark, a sense of a closing of ranks, an unwillingness by the NHS to face up to some really serious allegations to what happened in that hospital.

“So this report is in my view very long overdue.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “Norman Lamb, in his capacity as a minister at the Department of Health at the time, was instrumental in the decision to set up a panel investigation into the tragic events at Gosport.

“The government, along with local NHS organisations and authorities, will receive a copy of the report [on Wednesday] and we expect the findings to be studied closely and carefully by all relevant parties.”

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

It had been claimed in allegations stretching back 30 years, that patients at the hospital were almost routinely given strong painkillers in high doses, which may have led to their deaths.

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

Dr Barton was found guilty of “multiple instances of serious professional misconduct” by the General Medical Council in 2010 but was not struck off and soon retired.

She told the GMC at the time that she had faced an “excessive and increasing burden” looking after patients and faced “unreasonable” pressure in her job.

There is no suggestion Dr Barton has committed a criminal offence. She is among several medical staff questioned over the years about the persistent allegations by relatives.

The 2013 report by Prof Baker found opiate 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.

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

The inquiry reporting on Wednesday is headed by former Bishop of Liverpool James Jones, who led the Hillsborough inquiry, and is expected to find that the number of people who died under suspicious circumstances exceeds the 92 cases already looked into by police.

Theresa May is expected to refer to the finding during Prime Minister’s Questions later the same day, with health secretary Jeremy Hunt also expected to give a statement.