Hundreds of death certificates signed by a retired doctor previously found guilty of ‘serious professional misconduct’ are being re-examined in a new inquiry into whether the deaths were caused by overdoses
The certificates of 833 patients at Gosport War Memorial Hospital in Hampshire will be queried in a £13million probe investigating allegations Dr Jane Barton ordered them to be given fatal painkiller overdoses.
Dr Barton was found guilty of giving 12 patients a lethal cocktail of drugs at a General Medical Council hearing in 2010, but was allowed to continue working after the GMC’s chief executive intervened and challenged the decision to strike her from the register.
She has since retired, but more than 120 families of patients who fear their loved ones were killed have come forward to report their concerns to the panel.
Previous inquests have also found that drugs prescribed by Dr Barton, who worked at the hospital as a clinical assistant between 1988 and 2000, contributed to deaths.
Hundreds of death certificates signed by Dr Jane Barton, left and right, will be re-examined in an inquiry investigating whether the patients died of prescribed drug overdoses
She also signed death certificates as part of her role, while the 2010 hearing was told she signed off on giving out large doses of opiate painkillers to ‘keep patients quiet’.
The inquiry, chaired by former Bishop of Liverpool James Jones, who headed the 2012 Hillsborough Inquiry, is expected to publish a report next spring.
Relatives have been demanding answers over whether their loved ones were also given painkiller cocktails.
Bridget Reeves, 41, whose grandmother Elsie Devine died at the hospital in 1999 after being given a ‘substantial overdose’ of opiates for a kidney infection, said her relative had been ‘given enough drugs to lay out a 6ft violent man in a psychiatric ward’.
She told The Sunday Times: ‘These deaths have all happened behind closed doors and similar deaths are probably continuing to happen. We want people to be held accountable.’
Charles Farthing, 78, told the paper the death of his stepfather Arthur ‘Brian’ Cunningham, was a ‘monstrous cover-up’.
He said: ‘Brian was being treated for bedsores; there’s no way he was near death.’
Eastbourne MP Stephen Lloyd has been supporting the family of Gladys Richards, 91, for more than a decade. A second inquest into her death in 2013 found opiates prescribed by Dr Barton contributed to her death.
Dr Barton’s drug prescriptions were found to have contributed to the deaths of both Elsie Devine, left, and Gladys Richards, right
He told The Sunday Times: ‘What went on at Gosport was just wicked. It seems to me there has been the most enormous cover-up for many years. I hope this inquiry finally unearths the truth and gives these families peace.’
Inquests also found the drugs contributed to the deaths of Robert Wilson, 74, Geoffrey Packman, 67, and Elsie Lavender, 83. All deaths occurred between 1996 and 1999.
Portsmouth Healthcare NHS Trust, which ran the hospital until it was disbanded in 2002, always denied there was any wrongdoing involved.
Police investigations have been launched over the years but none have ever brought charges.
Families of patients who died at Gosport War Memorial Hospital, pictured, when Dr Barton worked there between 1988 and 2000 are now coming forward to demand the deaths of their relatives be investigated
Dr Barton’s frail patients at the Gosport War Memorial Hospital in Hampshire were given cocktails of painkillers six times the recommended dose and lapsed into comas, the 2010 hearing in Central London was told.
But Dr Barton remained free to practise, subject to restrictions on prescribing certain drugs, including a ban on giving out opiates by injection for three years.
The GMC’s fitness to practise panel found her guilty of ‘multiple instances of serious professional misconduct’ and said her behaviour was ‘inappropriate, potentially hazardous and/or not in the best interests’ of her patients.
Dr Barton’s former Royal Navy commodore husband Tim told the Times she declined to comment.