Emails sent by Whitehall health officials reveal an attempt to ‘cover up’ the Gosport opiate scandal, it has been claimed, as it emerged nurses first raised the alarm thirty years ago.
Former health minister Norman Lamb feared he was being deliberately left out of the loop when officials allegedly published a report while he was on holiday.
Expressing his fears about the suspected premature deaths, the Liberal Democrat MP said:’ If I was a relative I would regard that as pretty serious – ie that my mum has been killed!’
Mr Lamb told civil servants he was ‘extremely unhappy’ he had not seen a review into patient deaths, the Sunday Mirror reports.
Former health minister Norman Lamb (pictured) feared he was being deliberately left out of the loop when officials allegedly published a report while he was on holiday
Mr Lamb told the newspaper he was ‘left feeling they may have been attempting a cover-up.’
It comes as a whistleblower warned that faulty syringes could have been responsible for thousands of deaths nationwide.
It also emerged that nurses warned hospital chiefs at Gosport War Memorial hospital as early as 1988 that patients were receiving the drugs ‘without medical justification’.
Hospital bosses were told that nurses were concerned about the use of diamorphine, but no action was taken, The Sunday Times reports.
A damning report released this week said more than 450 people had their lives shortened after being prescribed powerful painkillers at Gosport.
An additional 200 patients were ‘probably’ similarly given opioids between 1989 and 2000 without medical justification.
The report by Professor Richard Baker in 2003 found painkillers had ‘almost certainly shortened the lives of some patients’.
But it was not published until 2013 and Mr Lamb said officials should have realised sooner what they were dealing with.
A damning report released this week said more than 450 people had their lives shortened after being prescribed powerful painkillers at Gosport War Memorial Hospital
He said: ‘Whoever received that document in 2003 should have surely said to themselves, this is unbelievable, we must pursue this.’
In an email to civil servants he wrote: ‘Officials have not let me see the Baker report despite them knowing of my real interest.
‘I feel that officials are deliberately doing this whilst I’m away.’
The minister said a press release put out about the report showed ‘no expression of regret [or] remorse for this awful treatment.’
He also countered plans by officials to block a public inquiry into the Gosport scandal, saying he would regard it as ‘pretty serious’ if he was a relative.
Mr Lamb was minister for care and support during the coalition government, serving in the role from 2012 to 2015.